After ‘Heated Rivalry’ mania, a very adult ‘Heartstopper’ is here

By David Mack, CNN

(CNN) — It takes less than 10 minutes of watching the new “Heartstopper Forever” movie on Netflix to realize this is not the same tenderhearted romance to which audiences were first introduced.

When the British series debuted in 2022, Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke) were teenage boys of 16 and 14, respectively, navigating confusing feelings for one another in a show that was unabashedly sentimental and eschewed any references to anything even remotely sexual, cocooning the characters in flutters of animated love hearts. But the boys, like the actors who play them, have since done some growing up.

Their yearslong romance entered a new stage at the end of the third season, when they lost their virginity to each other. Now, having driven to a remote seaside pier at sunset, they race each other to the end and begin to passionately make out, before Charlize unzips Nick’s pants, sticks his hand down and goes to town. “I’m thinking about you,” the singer Baby Queen croons in the song that overlays the scene and title sequence, “and you’re thinking about sex.”

“We have this moment of just pure teenage abandon, teenage recklessness, which I think feels so real to teenagers,” said Alice Oseman, the writer of both “Heartstopper Forever” and the original webcomic-turned-graphic novel on which the series is based. “We have always tried to age up ‘Heartstopper’ a little bit every single time we come back to it.”

On the one hand, the adult evolution of “Heartstopper” isn’t surprising. Its characters—and its intended target audience—are older now, full of promise, insecurities and hormones. They get drunk. They smoke. They sneak into nightclubs. They have sex. But it’s still admittedly a little jarring to watch two boys we first met in a sweet-to-the-point-of-saccharine series act outthe intricacies of penetrative lovemaking. Sex scenes exist in Oseman’s original comic, but feel decidedly more real when shown on screen than on the page. “It’s a line that you have towalk: ‘How far are we going to take this?’” Connor told the Guardian of the show’s new steamy scenes. “But at the end of the day, it did feel like these two guys are really attracted to each other at the age where they probably would have been doing it.”

“It would be weird if we hadn’t shown it,” Locke told the newspaper. “Just because our show is a more earnest version of a queer representation doesn’t mean that sex (shouldn’t be shown).”

It’s impossible to watch this new movie without acknowledging that its streaming release on Friday comes in the aftermath of the cultural phenomenon that was “Heated Rivalry.” Many of the young, original fans of “Heartstopper” are now old enough to go to some of the “Heated Rivalry”-themed dance parties that spread earlier this year. The Canadian gay hockey romance launched fujoshi fandom into the mainstream, proving audiences — and women, in particular — had a desire to watch two young guys roll around in some good old-fashioned smut.

Yet as “Heartstopper Forever” suddenly leans into being a more daring and explicit program, it still wants to elevate sentimentality in ways that occasionally feel tonally confusing. The show is trying to mature without alienating the sensitive souls — derisively called “tenderqueers” by some in the LGBTQ community — that have embraced the series. But, as Connor alluded, the balance between twee and turned-on, between wholesome and horny, is a tough line to walk.

According to Oseman, the primary objective of “Heartstopper Forever” was to prioritize emotional intimacy, even in the moments that turn physical. There were extensive discussions among the creative team about how best to film these encounters in ways that still conveyed the affectionate tone they were trying for, she said: “The priority has always been storytelling over titillation. We’re not trying to just eroticize these characters. We’re trying to tell a story about these characters.”

On paper, “Heartstopper” and “Heated Rivalry” share more cultural DNA than you might first think. Both chronicle a yearslong romance between two teen boys — one gay, one bisexual — and the coming out process. Both are also based on works penned by women: Rachel Reid for “Heated Rivalry” and Oseman for “Heartstopper.” Both also explore ideas of masculinity, heteronormativity and the closet through the worlds of sport: professional hockey in “Heated Rivalry” and school rugby for “Heartstopper.” And despite wrapping production before the Canadian series aired, this new movie also mirrors it with a scene in which the two lovers stare at each other across a crowded nightclub dance floor. All that’s missing is the song “All the Things She Said.”

And yet, the shows are also wildly different, not just in terms of the age appropriateness of their content. The nudity-heavy “Heated Rivalry” leads with sex before its characters start catching feelings for each other (common for many of us gay men, it must be said), while “Heartstopper” takes the opposite approach. Other viewers have also drawn parralels between the two shows, while still noting their differences: one is “raunchy and spicy,” the other “cute and fluffy.” One is a “Picasso”; the other, perhaps rather unfairly, “a child’s finger painting.”

This new movie serves as the end of the “Heartstopper” story, after a decline in viewership for the show’s third season raised questions about its future. “Heartstopper Forever” chronicles a difficult period for Nick and Charlie, who most certainly are no longer children. With the former preparing to leave high school and begin university in Leeds, there are big, existential questions hanging over their relationship. To cope, Nick seems to be turning to alcohol, while Charlie continues to struggle with self-harm ideation and an eating disorder. Things are also tough for their friends, Elle (Yasmin Finney) and Tao (William Gao), whose constant bickering seems to be an ominous portent for their on-again-off-again relationship.

As we watch the characters deal with the anxiety that comes with impending adulthood, it’s hard to remember how sweetly innocent things felt for them back when the series premiered —and just how revolutionary it was for many to see a joyous queer romance, especially for older LGBTQ people who wished such content had existed in their youth. The show was an enormous hit for Netflix and rocket launched the careers of its cast, with Locke entering the Marvel Universe in “Agatha All Along,” Connor starring in movies and on Broadway and Finney appearing in “Doctor Who.”

Part of the show’s success was driven by the fact it felt like a healing balm amid a toxic political environment. It arrived at a time when LGBTQ rights, particularly those for young people, were under fresh attack from a resurgent right-wing movement that sought to portray queerness as a disease that could be caught in schools or through exposure to drag culture.

In the intervening years, the dark clouds haven’t exactly cleared, especially for young transgender people like Elle and Finney, the actress who plays her. “The world hates me right now. The government is taking away my rights and everything we fought for,” Elle tells Charlie in one scene during this new movie. “People don’t want me using public bathrooms or existing at all. I just want to be myself. To be free. To be happy.”

It’s here — in this quest to provide its young viewers with happiness — that “Heartstopper” continues to serve its most noble purpose. “What ‘Heartstopper’ is doing is showing you that everything’s going to be okay,” Oseman said. “No matter what you’re dealing with, there’s always light, there’s always hope, there’s always joy.”

So while the send-off for the beloved series does occasionally stumble as it navigates the tightrope between sex and sentiment, and while its conclusion might feel a touch too rose-colored for those of us who’ve come to see the world in more jaded terms, Oseman always wanted her characters to have a happy ending. “It’s a romance story,” she said, “and the conventions of romance tell us that there will be a ‘happily ever after.’”

Indeed, perhaps it is best to see “Heartstopper” as a fairy tale, as Oseman said. The show is proudly a fantasy — just not necessarily in the adult sense of the word.

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