Heartstopper: A beautiful love story we all need

By Molly Ryan

June 10, 2022

Netflix’s newly released coming-of-age romance show called Heartstopper portrays the beauty behind young love.

The show follows Charlie (Joe Locke), an openly gay, overthinking teenager who has a crush on Nick Nelson (Kit Connor), a popular rugby player. The two go to Truham Boys School. Over the course of the 8 episode series, the two boys slowly fall in love.

Unfortunately in the beginning of the show, Charlie is in a toxic relationship with Ben Hope (Sebastian Croft), who is closeted and wants to do everything to keep their relationship a secret. But to help Charlie with all of this, he has a supportive art teacher (Fisayo Akinade), cool sister Tori (Jenny Walser), and his bestfriends Tao and Isaac (William Gao and Tobie Donovan). Charlie is also friends with Elle (Yasmin Finney), who transferred to Higgs Girls School after experiencing transphobic bullying after coming out. Charlie came out the year before, and is still recovering from the homophobia that he faced.

Nick and Charlie sit next to each other on the first day of school and instantly become friends. They begin talking and hanging out, and shortly sparks fly between the two and Nick starts to catch feelings for Charlie, which makes him start to question his sexuality.

This show does an incredible job of showing homophobia and the struggles that the LGBTQ+ community faces in this world, while still keeping the show innocent and pure.

Nick’s homophobic rugby-obsessed friends start to realize that Nick is falling for Charlie, and they do not like it. Harry Greene (Cormac Hyde-Corrin), who was one of Nick’s bestfriends makes “gay jokes” 24/7 and is extremely rude to Charlie, and his bestfriend Tao.

The show also follows a couple from Higgs Girls School. Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell), who like Nick and Charlie, spend their days keeping everyone thinking they’re platonic best friends.

Kit Connor’s performance as Nick is absolutely spectacular. Connor perfectly captures the awkwardness and purity of Nick’s character. You can tell he takes the character to heart, and genuinely feels Nick’s struggles of discovering his sexuality.

The storyline of this show is very simple but still detailed. English writer and illustrator Alice Oseman had written this story which was originally a webcomic on Tumblr and Tapas. The show is directed by Euros Lyn, who is an English director who had previously directed Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Black Mirror.

Heartstopper is a truly pure, comforting, and delicate show that captures the beautiful romance between two wonderful characters. Netflix needs more coming-of age romances like this. Rating : TV-14. 5 stars out of 5.