Heartstopper Forever Should Have Been Heartstopper Season 4 — Review

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

4

When making something as beloved as Heartstopper, veering from what’s familiar can feel like betrayal.

Darker themes, more explicit sexuality, and the nuances of life can rob it of those cozy qualities that make it worth getting lost in for several hours.

But then, a narrative that shows no progress or growth for its characters stagnates and becomes worse than watching paint dry.

Heartstopper Forever concludes a queer gem by revisiting fan-favorite scenes while trying to make its characters feel like they have grown up and matured.

For fans of the series and the comics, it can be an okay ending to the story by paying homage to the show’s iconic moments while setting up the characters for a joyous future.

But from a purely critical standpoint, Heartstopper Forever does not add anything new to the story — if you don’t count the prevalence of sex.

I must admit that this is one of those times when the fan and the critic in me are engaged in a fierce battle.

The fan likes the movie because it’s Heartstopper to the core, but the critic feels it rushes through everything without depth.

Part of this is because the format has changed, and it doesn’t do the story justice. The full circle moments don’t feel so full.

The Nostalgia Crutch

Rather than doing the hard work of building new, deeply earned emotional milestones, Heartstopper Forever frequently retreats into what is familiar. 

The movie is packed with mirrors, actively revisiting key highlights of the characters’ journey — from the first meeting and early date to Nick’s pivotal coming-out. 

For dedicated fans, these callbacks are undeniably sweet. However, as a storytelling device, they function like a cheat code. 

The film asks the audience to feel a rush of emotion based on their memories of past seasons, even when those memories have no present anchor. 

This constant backward glance creates a pacing bottleneck, leaving the film’s newly introduced conflicts lacking the runway to take off.

The Underexplored Adulthood

Heartstopper Forever is not devoid of new ideas; it features several compelling storylines, including Nick’s toxic perfectionism, Charlie’s newfound confidence, and Tara and Darcy’s major decisions about their post-school futures.

Unfortunately, these arcs are starved of depth, quickly swept aside before they can be meaningfully explored.

Nick comes to realize that he has been living his life trying to be the perfect son, teammate, and boyfriend because he’s afraid people will leave if he’s not perfect.

That is something deep, worth exploring over an entire season, but the movie recreates the iconic Nick and Sarah coming-out scene and acts as if it has resolved everything.

It’s one of the parallels it relies on too much.

As the movie touches on the future, it explores a decision that many university-goers feel they should have explored: the gap year.

Tara and Darcy’s decision to step off the high-school-to-university conveyor belt is an incredibly grounded, relevant storyline. But since the movie largely focuses on Nick and Charlie, this storyline reads like a footnote.

Many of the supporting characters fade into the background, and even some like Tao, who were worth their weight in gold, don’t provide the comedic levity that they’re known for.

The Happiness Trap

The movie does feature all the classic tropes of romance: the good patch, the snag, miscommunication, and breakup. It works hard to keep the viewer emotionally invested, even if some parts, like the breakup, feel forced.

But where the movie succumbs to its own expectations is when Charlie and Nick eventually get back together, because of course they do.

Heartstopper has positioned itself as happy queer media, so everything must have a happy ending. As a result, every storyline ends up the way a fan would want — and the fan in me loves it — but it’s not that riveting for the casual viewer.

They are not the kind of endings that can inspire social media frenzies or essays and thinkpieces.

A Sexy Ending

What is bound to cause some storm are the sex scenes, which are numerous.

They might not be as explicit as they are in Euphoria, but for a show and fandom that treated sex like a ritual that steals your soul, to hear and see the characters openly discuss and engage in sex is a bit jarring.

I champion sex on TV because it is part of the human experience and can reveal more about characters than 10 pages of dialogue.

But some shows use sex gratuitously, where it is used to “replace” an actual plot.

Heartstopper Forever doesn’t do that. If anything, it feels like the movie is overcompensating for all the missed opportunities over the years.

There is a very fine line between overcompensation and sheer gratuitousness, and while the movie doesn’t cross it, the sudden shift remains a bit of a shock to the system.

In the end, it at least proves that first loves can indeed be forever.

Gut Check

Heartstopper Forever is a fitting conclusion to this story.

It tugs on the nostalgia strings with scenes like the first meeting, dates, sex, Nick’s coming out, while giving the characters a happy ending.

Still, I think there was more material here for an entire season, which would have done storylines justice.

Intrusive Thoughts

• After Star City, I carry some Lyudmilla trauma, so seeing Anna Maxwell Martin as Nick’s mom took some adjusting.

• Gone is the era of top/bottom discourse in the fandoms. I’m not ready to see the omegaverse version of Nick and Charlie’s relationship.

• If someone binged all the seasons back-to-back, Heartstopper Forever would make them exclaim, “I could have sworn I watched that this morning?”

Let’s keep the conversation going — it’s the only way the good stuff survives.

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