The Netflix series Heartstopper always stood out to us because it treated its central romance, between the bullied Charlie and the then-closeted rugby player Nick, with a sense of maturity we rarely see in teen dramas. After a three-season run, a two-hour movie, Heartstopper Forever, wraps up their story.
The Gist: It’s fall at Truham Grammar School, an all-boys secondary school, and Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) is running for Head Boy, a UK boys’ school equivalent of student body president. He’s encouraged before his speech by his boyfriend, Nick Nelson (Kit Connor). Charlie makes a stirring speech about being bullied as one of the few publicly gay boys in the school, and he promises to make the school a safe space for anyone who gets bullied, as well as the school’s LGBTQ population. He gets elected by a landslide..
Charlie and Nick seem to be as in love and solid as ever, especially to their group of friends. But, with Nick graduating and getting a rugby scholarship to Leeds University, there are a lot of changes approaching that is making Nick think about exactly who he is. It leads him to a dark space, where he’s drinking (it’s legal to drink when you’re 16 in the UK, and legal to buy alcohol when you’re 18) and looking out into the middle distance more.
For his part, Charlie, who helped Nick come out publicly, wants Nick to talk about his feelings and gets frustrated when Nick keeps things bottled up. But Nick also sees things going on with Charlie, namely that Charlie might be having a relapse of the disordered eating that affected his health a year or so prior. Charlie has Zoom sessions with his therapist Geoff (Eddie Marsan) to help him figure out what might be triggering the relapse.
There are also changes afoot for the friend group. Elle (Yasmin Finney) and Tao (William Gao) are constantly breaking up and getting back together. Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell) are figuring out their post-graduation lives. Nick’s ex, Imogen (Rhea Norwood), is also exploring new relationship frontiers. Charlie’s sister Tori (Jenny Walser) seems to have a relationship with Michael (Darragh Hand) that’s more about companionship and “getting” each other than it is about sex or romance. Isaac (Tobie Donovan), who has already declared himself asexual, wants to write a novel.
As the year proceeds, from autumn into the summer, Nick’s ennui and Charlie’s stress get to them both, especially as they face post-high-school life, a treacherous time for even the most solid couples.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Heartstopper Forever is a movie-length finale for the series Heartstopper, created by Alice Oseman based on her graphic novel series. We’ve always likened the show to a more gentle version of Never Have I Ever.
Performance Worth Watching: Both Joe Locke and Kit Connor have matured along with their characters, Charlie and Nick. They are adept at showing their characters’ love for each other, but also the more complex emotions that have developed as high school has progressed. Locke is especially good as we see Charlie help a younger student with his bullies and establish a Pride Club with the help from his art teacher Mr. Ajayi (Fisayo Akinade).
Sex And Skin: We see Nick and Charlie having sex, and they’re naked while doing it, but we never see their full bodies in those scenes.
Our Take: Fans of Heartstopper will be satisfied with how Heartstopper Forever ends the story of Nick, Charlie and their friends. There’s an acknowledgement that things are changing and that people may end up moving on as they navigate college and adulthood, but there is a strong sense that Nick and Charlie will endure, simply because their bond is so strong and they’ve already been through so much together.
One issue we had with the movie is that there seems to be about an hour’s worth of story in a film that runs close to two hours. There is a musical interlude that’s fun but somewhat pointless, and it seems that almost everyone, including Nick’s mother Sarah (Anna Maxwell Martin), gets a monologue about being true to yourself, about love, about Nick and Charlie’s devotion to each other, etc. There is more than one scene where Charlie checks in on a brooding Nick. The repetition gets noticeable after awhile.
Despite everyone’s ups and downs in the film, anyone who has followed these people’s stories has an idea of where it will likely end up. Even if you think certain couples are in danger, just because high school romances tend to end because people move on and change as they enter adulthood, viewers know there will be some sort of reconciliation in the end. Is it sappy? Sure. But there’s something to be said about seeing love win out, even as it morphs into a new form as people get older.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Heartstopper Forever is a bit of a bloated finale, given the story it has to tell in its two-hour runtime, but it still gives fans of Nick and Charlie a satisfying conclusion to their love story.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.