Heartstopper Forever

Jul 19

Heartstopper has officially come to an end, and instead of wrapping the story up with another season, the creators chose to do it through a feature-length film that, given its runtime, essentially feels like one last season.

Heartstopper Forever follows Nick, Charlie, and their friends through the final months of high school as they prepare for graduation, make decisions about their futures, and come to terms with the fact that life is about to change forever. Everyone faces their own version of growing up. Some relationships are put on pause as people try to figure out whether they're actually worth fighting for. Some are terrified of the commitment that comes with college, while others can't wait for a fresh start where they can finally be themselves. But, naturally, the film's main focus remains on Nick and Charlie.

One of the most interesting things here is how their dynamic completely flips at the start. Charlie has finally found confidence in himself and reached a point where he's ready to support the people around him, both at school and beyond. Meanwhile, Nick, who spent most of the series going through life with a relatively light head and not overthinking much, suddenly starts questioning who he actually is as a person. His childhood issues, rooted in his relationship with his father, finally catch up with him. Just to make sure we get the point, the film even gives us the story of the lost puppy at the shelter where he works, spelling out that Nick himself is that lost puppy.

The problem is that both of them mostly end up overthinking everything and creating problems that leave them equally miserable. And, unfortunately, every idea the film already communicates visually still has to be explained out loud, either by the character experiencing it or by someone else. Nothing is ever allowed to simply exist between the lines. For some reason, Nick Nelson also turns into an alcoholic for about five minutes, which feels very Pretty Little Liars-coded.

To be fair, Heartstopper has always been a fairly light and surface-level project. Even when the series tackled subjects as serious as self-harm and eating disorders, I never thought it handled them particularly well (I won't even get into how badly the series mistreated Charlie's sister, Tori, because I'll lose myself if I do). That's always been my biggest issue with the show: it consistently reached for topics that felt bigger than what it actually knew how to explore.

Heartstopper Forever does a little less of that. Instead, it spends more time on personal identity crises. Nick's storyline could have genuinely been one of the strongest parts of the film. For the first time, we really get to focus on his inner world, his fears, and his emotional struggles — something the series desperately lacked before. But then... it doesn't really finish that story. His identity crisis ultimately remains unresolved. Nick and Charlie simply take a little break, get back together, and that's apparently supposed to be his happy ending, even though the actual problem was never their relationship. It was Nick's relationship with himself.

The recasting of Nick's mother also doesn't help. Olivia Colman had very little screen time throughout the series, but every scene between her and Kit Connor radiated warmth, love, and genuine comfort. Anna Maxwell Martin never quite recreates that same feeling.

The film also quickly wraps up everyone else's stories. In doing so, it even briefly and quite unexpectedly touches on genuinely important issues, including the rights of trans people in the UK amid increasingly restrictive legislation, giving Yasmin Finney a powerful monologue. At the same time, none of these storylines are explored particularly deeply. Instead, the film simply makes sure every character gets some form of closure.

But that's also what Heartstopper has always been. It's been a fairy tale about what life, love, problems, and growing up could look like rather than what they actually look like. And every fairy tale eventually ends with a happy ending. That's exactly what Heartstopper Forever delivers.

Even though I'm well outside this show's target audience now, and even though I still think it struggles whenever it reaches for subjects that demand much more nuance, I still believe Heartstopper is a genuinely sweet story for teenagers, and I'm glad today's generation has something like it. Real life and all of its problems will catch up with everyone eventually. In the meantime, spending a little time in a world where every touch is accompanied by animated sparks and encouraging music might honestly be a good thing.

6.5/10

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