ZHUANG, JOHN HENRICK T.

FEBRUARY 16, 2019

GRADE 12A MS. CABREROS

A Formalist Critique of the Movie:

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

In literary criticism, Formalism refers to a style of inquiry that focuses, almost

exclusively, on features of the literary text itself, to the exclusion of biographical, historical, or
intellectual contexts. The name "Formalism" derives from one of the central tenets of Formalist
thought: That the form of a work of literature is inherently a part of its content, and that the
attempt to separate the two is fallacious. By focusing on literary form and excluding superfluous
contexts, Formalists believed that it would be possible to trace the evolution and development of
literary forms, and thus, literature itself. (newworldencyclopedia.org, n.d.) The main objective of
a formalist critique is to determine how all of the basic elements of a story work together with
the text’s content, in this case the movie’s content. In order to do so, I will be examining all the
basic elements namely the characters, setting, theme, etc. and will be identifying whether all of
these elements are appropriate for the plot of the story.
The main characters of the movie To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before are students
studying in High School. The main protagonists are Lara Jean Song Covey, a very shy type girl,
Peter Kavinsky, the famous guy, Josh Corbett, Lara’s crush and the ex-boyfriend of her sister,
and many others. In this movie there is the use of some student stereotypes. The setting of the
movie is in school, the typical place where teenagers/young adults find their other half. In the
movie, Lara Jean’s secret love letters spread to their respective recipients leaving devasted
because all those letters are supposed to be for her eyes only. One of the recipients, Peter
Kavinsky then asks Lara to be pretend partners with him after he read the message and the
reason for this is because he just broke up with his girlfriend and desperately wants her back. In
the end, the fake relationship they had turned into something real that lead to them being together
until the end of the movie. This plot is not your typical high school story but it is a very unique
one. The main conflict of the story is that both Lara and Peter are using each other to get what
they want and having a pretend relationship is their way to resolve their problems.
All of these elements of a story or in this case a movie is appropriate for the whole story.
For all the characters, to the setting, plot, etc. all of which complement each other to form the
entirety of the movie .