‘ To All the Boys’ another rom-com creating a buzz

Netflix keeps on churning out romantic comedies.

The latest such title from the streaming giant is “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.” The film stars Lana Condor (“X-Men: Apocalypse”) as Lara Jean Song Covey, a 16-year-old coping with “intense” crushes by writing love letters she never plans to send.

Spoiler alert: All five letters wind up being mailed out, and Lara Jean is forced to confront her feelings.

Hoping to undo some of the damage, Lara Jean makes a classic rom-com move — pretending to date Peter (Noah Centineo), a longtime classmate and one of her letter subjects, who has a motive of his own: making his ex-girlfriend jealous.

The film and its lead actors, in particular, are drawing attention.

Here’s what you should know about “To All the Boys”:

• It’s based on a book.

The film is adapted from Jenny Han’s young-adult novel of the same name. Han’s novel, published in 2014, became a New York Times bestseller and led to the wellreviewed sequel: “P.S. I Still Love You.”

• It’s getting rave reviews.

The movie, directed by Susan Johnson, currently holds a 93 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Vox called it “an unabashedly sweet movie” and says it “might be the best teen romance of the decade.” Vulture dubbed it “a sweet and savvy film.”

• The lead character is Asian-American.

Lara Jean is KoreanAmerican and also biracial. (Her white father is played by John Corbett.)

Condor told Teen Vogue that she was “beyond thrilled” that the audition log line specifically referenced Lara Jean as an “Asian-American love interest.”

That was no small feat, as Han recalled in an op-ed for The New York Times. Han wrote that there was interest in adapting her novel even before it was released but that “the interest died as soon as I made it clear the lead had to be Asian-American.”

“One producer said to me, as long as the actress captures the spirit of the character, age and race don’t matter,” Han wrote. “I said, well, her spirit is Asian-American. That was the end of that.”

Ultimately, Han said, she ended up working with “the only production company that agreed the main character would be played by an Asian actress.”

Lara Jean also has two sisters, Margot and Kitty, played respectively by Janel Parrish (“Pretty Little Liars”) and Anna Cathcart (Disney’s “Descendants” franchise).

That said, the movie is drawing some backlash because none of Lara Jean’s love interests are Asian. Han addressed the criticism in an interview with IndieWire.

“I understand the frustration, and I share that frustration of wanting to see more Asian-American men in media,” she told the site. “For this, all I can say is this is the story that I wrote.”

• Condor and Centineo, in particular, are drawing praise for their performances.

“Condor is a readymade star,” wrote Vulture’s Emily Yoshida, “and Centineo rises to meet her, the adoring, throaty lunk any introverted teen dreams of coming around and melting away her shyness.”

Johnson, the director, recently told The Washington Post that Centineo is “the Tom Hanks” of his generation.