By Christopher Chiu-Tabet
Released on Netflix from 2022 to 2024, Heartstopper was a lovely British schoolboy romance series, adapted by writer Alice Oseman from her webcomic (2016-2026) of the same name. Now the show has returned with a movie finale, Heartstopper Forever, directed by Wash Westmoreland (Colette, Still Alice), which finds boyfriends Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) and Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) struggling with Nick’s imminent move from home for university, and the sad fact teenage relationships don’t generally last.
Forever both is and isn’t a two-hour episode, with much more sophisticated lighting and dynamic camera moves than the show. It’s also more mature, with longer, more intimate sex scenes, and a few f-bombs that thoroughly earn the movie its older age rating (TV-MA in the States, and a 15 in the UK).
Otherwise, it’s still the show you love, complete with the fantastic use of animation to underscore our heroes’ emotions, an excellent score and soundtrack, and all the other faces you’ve grown to love, from Tao & Elle (William Gao and Yasmin Finney), to Tara & Darcy (Corinna Brown and Kizzy Edgell), Isaac (Tobie Donovan), Imogen (Rhea Norwood), Sahar (Leila Khan), Tori (Jenny Walser), and more.
The major new addition to the cast is Anna Maxwell Martin, replacing the now incredibly busy Olivia Colman as Nick’s mother Sarah. She’s an excellent actress, but does look very different, and brings a quieter, more contemplative energy than Colman. You can’t help but wonder what Colman would’ve been like, both from a continuity standpoint, and an emotional one, as her standout scene would’ve been more striking from someone with a comedy background like her, instead of Martin. There’s also a sweet (almost literally) cameo from the legendary Derek Jacobi and his real-life partner Richard Clifford, who remind us love can still be complicated at an old age.
The hitch with finishing Heartstopper in a movie instead of another season is that it is still adapting an episodic series, and the film consequently winds up feeling rather long, covering events from many months that would’ve breathed more naturally in the half-hour format. Two back-to-back sequences even follow the leads separately during the same time period, like two episodes of a show, and a subplot about Charlie’s work as head prefect ends surprisingly early.
The truncated approach means supporting characters get less screentime, to mixed results: Tao and Elle’s own relationship drama manages to stick the landing, whereas Imogen is heavily sidelined, something that feels tacitly acknowledged by a line from Nick about not realizing the journey she’s been on.
Still, Heartstopper Forever is as good as its three-season predecessor, a tender and sincere love story that offers strong and accessible representation for gay, bi, lesbian, ace, trans and non-binary people of a young age and different races, and older ones.
One scene, where Elle discusses how she feels right now as a trans girl in the UK following the erosion of her rights in the country since the show’s premiere, will earn the most attention, but there are many powerful moments like it, especially when Charlie and Nick’s relationship is put to the test here. If you’ve watched the show, and are as invested in their romance as you should be, then there’s no way you won’t become overwhelmed with how their love fractures, evolves, and strengthens over the course of the movie, as they confront their own insecurities, and recognize what it truly means to no longer be boys, but young men.
By the end, you will be proud (no pun intended) of how far Nick, Charlie, and all their friends have come (as well as the actors who play them), and wistful that this beautifully inclusive story has ended, despite the satisfying and heartwarming conclusion it gives its characters. Heartstopper is a gem that plays both on and against nostalgia, and it is a very good thing it got to conclude with this movie, warts and all. Hopefully, it’ll live up to the film’s name, and not be taken off Netflix like other major LGBT media for licensing reasons – this is, and should remain, a shining beacon of representation on the streamer.
Heartstopper Forever is now streaming on Netflix.
