Netflix’s beloved LGBTQ teen romance series closes with a feature-length finale that is equal parts heartbreaking and triumphant for its devoted audience.
“Everyone thinks teenage relationships don’t last,” teases Joe Locke’s Charlie Spring early in the film, setting the tone for what follows across its runtime.
Adapted from Alice Oseman’s books, Heartstopper has always operated in a pastel-hued utopia where literal multicoloured sparks fly across the screen whenever couples share a kiss.
That world has provided vital representation for Gen Z and Millennial LGBTQ viewers who grew up without stories that reflected their own experiences on screen.
Locke, who is 22, has spoken about middle-aged viewers regularly thanking him for making the show they never had when they were growing up.
This final instalment captures something specific and difficult to articulate, the hideous cocktail of fear, excitement and sadness that defines the pre-university summer for so many young people.
Set against Netflix’s predictably glossy sheen, with trips to fairgrounds, beaches and increasingly grown-up house parties, a palpable sense of trepidation runs beneath every scene.
Heartstopper has always understood how inter-railing feels enormous even when it is just a month, and how a two-hour train journey can feel like an untenable obstacle standing in the way of young love.
Kit Connor and Locke, now both A-list Hollywood stars, relax convincingly back into their 18-year-old characters, and their chemistry remains, as ever, off the chain.
Locke, who applied through an open casting call and has not attended drama school, brings a less affected style than Connor, whose glazed-over-eyes-staring-into-the-middle-distance scenes reflect his classical training.
Oseman develops Nick in particular from something fairly linear into a man who wears his childhood trauma imperfectly, transforming the sugary-sweet nice guy into something of a saboteur.
As Nick loses himself, wide-eyed Charlie quietly combusts beside him, and the dynamic between the two leads becomes genuinely compelling in a way earlier series only hinted at.
Scenes depicting queer kids hiding in teachers’ classrooms at lunchtime to avoid bullies feel sad but truthful, carrying enormous weight for anyone who has found themselves in a similar situation.
The supporting cast, including Yasmin Finney, has scaled-back roles in this finale, though fans will be reassured that each major former cast member makes at least one appearance.
Oseman also demonstrates her sharp comic sensibility throughout, with Finney’s Elle Argent delivering one of the film’s best lines: “In 30 years we’ll be middle aged, causing a scene at a drag brunch.”
The finale feels slightly contrived in places, but that is unlikely to trouble the thousands of devoted fans who have followed Nick and Charlie’s journey across three series.
Locke and Connor’s megawatt success outside the show, including Locke’s recent lead role in West End production Clarkston, means this almost certainly marks the definitive end of Heartstopper as a franchise.
Even so, and perhaps surprisingly, the story feels as though there could still be more in the tank had circumstances allowed for its continuation.
Heartstopper Forever ultimately does what the very best series finales should do, preserving its characters forever in aspic and delivering unbridled queer joy to return to again and again.
Heartstopper Forever is available on Netflix from 17 July.