Written by For the last five years, Heartstopper has charmed audiences, young and old, with its tale of two queer teenagers falling in love and growing together. But, as all teenage things do, their story must end. (After all, there’s uni to consider.)
What is Heartstopper Forever about?
The manifestation of that end is Heartstopper Forever, the first full-length film in the franchise after three seasons. Here, Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) and Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) are still blissfully in love as they’ve always been, but there are hints at cracks in their foundations. Nick is preparing to apply for university, settling on the University of Leeds, a five-hour drive from Truham. The application process has him feeling anxious, not just about entering adulthood, but what it means without Charlie by his side.
Deepening Nick’s anxiety is the sobering possibility that Charlie might be just fine without him. The young lad has fully come into his own, decisively winning the “head boy” position at their school and serving as a beacon for other queer students. After years of grounding himself in being Charlie’s protector, champion, and mental health advocate, Nick is left without a concrete purpose since their first “hi” in Heartstopper’s premiere episode. As for Charlie, he can sense Nick’s distress, but doesn’t know how to help him through it. For the first time in Heartstopper’s history, there is a genuine possibility that Nick and Charlie might not make it.
Heartstopper Forever Review
Therein lies Heartstopper Forever’s central issue: their conflict doesn’t feel weighty enough. One of Heartstopper’s storytelling hallmarks is Nick and Charlie’s ability to relate to each other and openly communicate, even when it would be reasonable for them not to. Issues that might’ve felled other couples — Nick’s “accidental” date with Imogen, his struggles to come out as bisexual, Charlie’s eating disorder — strengthened them. While refreshing as it is to see a teen couple not succumb to their hormonal instincts at every sign of trouble, it does raise the pain threshold for them. Is it believable that, after everything they’ve been through, Nick and Charlie, a couple that Toby refers to as soulmates, could be felled by the loaded suggestion that teen couples aren’t meant to last?
Of course, that inciting incident doesn’t happen in a vacuum. However, Nick’s anxieties about letting Charlie down and worrying that Charlie doesn’t need him don’t read as crises that would break down their hard-forged lines of communication. Watching Nick and Charlie’s sort-of breakup is uncomfortable not because their hearts are breaking, but because the people on screen don’t look or sound like Nick and Charlie. Their fight feels less like a natural progression of their relationship or a cataclysm weeks in the making and more like a plot contrivance.
Likely, the shrinking of Heartstopper Forever into a movie instead of a final season plays a significant role in the abruptness of Nick and Charlie’s relationship issues. The ten-episode format allowed story beats to breathe, with certain seeds being planted early and blooming later. (The first season hinted at Charlie’s eating disorder during a movie date, for instance.) Nick’s university anxieties or his discomfort with Charlie’s newfound confidence lack that oxygen, and leave the resulting conflict feeling stifled.
The incident that sparks their breakup is similarly stifled by its truncated length. Nick and Charlie fear that their relationship is doomed because teen relationships don’t last, an idea reinforced by Tao and Elle continually breaking up and getting back together. It’s a valid concern, but the film doesn’t provide us with the full context of Tao and Elle’s rocky relationship. It reflects the film’s overall limited portrayals of its supporting cast, a vibrant community around Nick and Charlie with their own interiorities and aims. Here, they feel far less consequential, even though their changing connections are a key driver in how Nick and Charlie see each other.
Frustrating as its diminished, limited storytelling can be, Heartstopper Forever still delivers the same visual and narrative charms that have won the hearts of millions. Alice Oseman excels at depicting teenagers’ thorny inner lives through her trademark illustrations. It is a powerful device to convey how daunting depression can be for teenagers, especially within the film’s context. Nick’s feelings of isolation are particularly impactful, with Oseman leaning into darker, subsuming colors that lean towards a horror film.
Related: The Fascinating True Story That Inspired Netflix’s 23,000 Lives, Explained
The film also manages to crack one of Heartstopper’s toughest criticisms: that the series’ approach to teen sex is unrealistically staid. Oseman appears to have taken note of such criticisms, because Nick and Charlie have a lot of sex in Heartstopper Forever. What’s impressive about these scenes is how they maintain a tasteful, age-appropriate distance for teenagers without shielding them from the joys and difficulties of different types of sex. From a storytelling standpoint, it works well; from a cultural one, it feels particularly important to a generation who have grown up within a fraught psychosexual landscape.
It also helps that Gen Alpha and younger zillennials are growing up with Kit Connor and Joe Locke as their pop culture icons. Heartstopper Forever’s storytelling issues feel more like quibbles, largely due to the two young men tasked with making them work. Having seen them literally grow up on screen, it is a true delight to see how much they’ve evolved as actors, both in skill and confidence. Locke feels especially revelatory here, handling Charlie’s emergence as a queer leader with a rich, unguarded clarity. Nick’s unmoored depression, serving as the film’s narrative hook, allows Connor to expand his well-honed emotional skill set. The way he conveys self-doubt, jealousy, and even malice through his expressions is astounding.
Is Heartstopper Forever worth watching?
It was only a matter of time before Heartstopper needed to reach its end, both as a series and as a beacon of romantic optimism for queer youth in desperate need of it. Like Nick, Charlie, and all things adolescent, Heartstopper Forever experiences some significant growing pains, self-inflicted and otherwise. However, the preceding series’ overall strength has earned the film the right to expend some capital and take some risks. Some (the approach to sex) are more successful than others (the structure), but the film is still Heartstopper, and Heartstopper is still a landmark entry in the queer and teen television canons.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
