Heartstopper Forever Has No Heart 

For years, I've heard great things about the Heartstopper franchise. It's wholesome, it's funny, it's positive, it's cozy, it's got heart. I can sit down and watch a movie or show that is any one of those things, but all of them at once? Sounds like too much. So, for years, I've smiled politely and nodded my way through people recommending this show to me.

But on July 17th, 2026, something changed. For most moviegoing people, this day was marked on the calendar as the release date for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. I didn't get tickets, so my afternoon was free. But there was another big release on the same day, and hungry for a good movie, I decided to watch Heartstopper Forever on Netflix.

I just took the plunge. I didn't know much about the show, didn't read the novels, didn't even know it was based on a graphic novel. Context be damned! A feature film (people assured me it was) should stand on its own, hence the term standalone film. Curious and skeptical about all the hype around Heartstopper, I gave the film a chance.

I want to start with something that might seem nitpicky or inane, but I trust that by the end of this article, it will make sense. Let's talk about Charlie's MUSIC sign.

The movie spends too much time in Charlie's bedroom. Like most kids his age, he's an avid Homer enjoyer, as the two posters on his wall tell us. He also seems like the color green quite a bit. There is a personality here, of that I'm sure. Tim Dickel, the show’s production designer, said in an interview that each bedroom is supposed to be a safe space for the character and show their growth through the seasons. So, as the show goes on, Charlie gets more posters, stickers, etc. So far so good. I didn't watch the show nor did I witness Charlie's story, but all of this makes sense.

But there was one thing I just kept focusing on: the neon MUSIC sign. I tried to find some information about it. Maybe it was a gag from the series or books? I imagined a little backstory for it, something like Charlie being ironically millennial and saying, "Yeah, I like MUSIC, I guess". That's kind of funny, I thought to myself. Then I looked it up, and found a lot of people around the internet like the sign. You can buy it on Etsy right now. What I didn't find was an explanation for it.

MUSIC is nice.

Based on the comments I saw, from people who I assume are neon light experts, the MUSIC sign was probably made for the show, as the letters are not connected to each other, so that each individual letter is probably plugged to the wall. It's not a real light you could just buy off the street; rather, someone designed it based on the one from the graphic novel. Basically, it was chosen for vibes because it looks cool.

I don't have a problem with that... on the surface. However, I think the MUSIC sign can be read as a symptom of the problem the ails Hearstopper Forever as a whole, and I do have a problem with that.

Everything in this film wants you to feel like it means something, like it has emotional weight behind it. It is constantly going for emotional moments that it didn't earn, at least not during the runtime of the movie. After the fifteenth time, you get tired. These moments that are peppered through the story feel manufactured and empty; they logically belong in the structure and timing of the script, but they don't have anything to do on an emotional level. Just like the MUSIC sign, they're just there for vibes.

This problem is especially hard to ignore when it comes to the supporting characters. Charlie and his boyfriend Nick have so many close friends that it makes me jealous. Without context, I can tell that by the time the movie starts, they've all completed their character arcs from the show. They're all comfortable in their skin, happy, thriving, one might say. It's hammered on pretty hard that they're like family and that they've overcome problems through their friendship. I missed that part of the story, but it's OK, I'm sure they'll have one last big adventure, right?

The problem in the film is that these people are barely part of the story. They mostly stand in the background, have a few lines here and there, and then they have a big dramatic, emotional scene that comes out of nowhere.

There's Nick's older brother, for example. He's such a non-character I'm not even sure he has a name. He comes back home after breaking up with his girlfriend and has, approximately, 45 seconds of screen time. During that time, you can tell he's kind of cold and a bit of an ass, but he does absolutely nothing at all related to the story. Then, his final scene is a little speech where he extends Nick an olive branch. Now, because I've seen a film or two, I recognize the importance of this moment. The structure and timing of it make it seem like a big event in Nick's story. I can imagine that, with the context of the series, this would have been a satisfying moment for the audience. "Finally, this guy is showing he's not an asshole!" But in the movie, this moment falls flat because the dude only spoke 14 syllables before this.

A similar thing happens with Elle Argent. She delivers a speech about government passing laws against trans rights. The camera zooms in, the music gets a tad dramatic. It's her big moment... but who the fuck is she? She doesn't figure in this movie at all. Just like the brother dude, she's given an emotional-seeming moment that has absolutely no weight behind it. The film hides these characters away and then brings them out and asks me to care about them. Why should I?

The same thing happens over and over again. It's very clear that the intention was to give each minor character a big moment, but the movie never builds up to these moments. For every speech, goodbye, reconciliation that these minor characters had, I had one simple question: What happened before this moment that makes this scene necessary? The answer is, sadly, not much.

The worst part of all is that the same MUSIC sign way of writing affects the main characters as well. Nick, for example, struggles the whole time with seeing himself outside of his relationship with Charlie. Who is Nick? I wonder the same thing, Nick, because all I got was the idea of a character, not the whole shebang.

Nick ponders on this for a good chunk of the runtime, until that problem seems to go away without resolution and is replaced by another one: abandonment issues. His dad left, so Nick is afraid that if he's not perfect, Charlie might leave as well. This leads them to an extremely forced break up that comes out of nowhere and is resolved in the exact same way. Hearstopper Forever tries to trick you into believing the scenes between these two characters are important, and it almost succeeds thanks to the really good performances by both actors, but the conflict and stakes in this relationship don't make sense at all.

All of this to say, the movie is excellent at manufacturing the appearance of being emotionally deep. It feels like a story. It feels like it has heart. But there's something off at every turn that makes you realize the whole thing is just a mechanism that's out of whack. There are effects, but hardly any causes. There are payoffs, but no setups. There are some emotional speeches, but they're not delivered by actual characters and they're not grounded in what we see on screen.

Like the MUSIC sign, something feels out of place about them. They look cool, the dialogue's fine, the performances are pretty great, but they're empty. There's no reason to have them, none at all.