'The Kissing Booth 2': Recap of how Elle and Noah hit it off before they navigate long-distance relationship
'The Kissing Booth 2' starring Joey King, Joel Courtney, and Jacob Elordi reprising their lead roles is a follow up to the popular 'The Kissing Booth'. The first part of the series portrayed Rochelle (Shelly) “Elle" Evans' friendship with Lee Flynn and how her interest in his brother Noah Flynn results in her friendship with Lee corroding bit by bit. The only rule to Lee and Elle's friendship was that she not fall for his brother Noah. However, Elle is not only crushing on Noah big time but also finds an opportunity to address her interest in him and that is at a kissing booth in a carnival.
Turns out the interest is mutual and things get cracking between Elle and Noah. However, deciding that coming clean to Lee about her budding relationship with his brother might ruin her friendship, Elle hides it all from Lee. It is her decision to hide everything from Lee and being caught red-handed that almost severs her relationship with Lee in 'The Kissing Booth'. If you are one of the ones who had decided to skip this film and at this moment think that this film is about friends turning lovers, you are wrong.
What we see conspire after this point in the film is two friends coming to terms about how each of them failed to accept the other and what really served as a catalyst to their misunderstanding in their relationship is not Noah but Lee's lack of self-esteem compared to his brother and Elle's lack of trust in her friend to understand her situation. In fact, when Lee walks in on Noah and Elle kissing, Elle lashes out at Noah for being the reason behind Lee misunderstanding the entire situation. She doesn't accept that the fault lies with her for lying to Lee, but when she does realize this, she ends up coming to the conclusion that Lee should also accept her choices.
So while she initially patches up with him after weeks of staying away from Lee, at their birthday party, she ends up confronting Lee and telling him that he needs to understand that he has to accept her choice to be with Noah if they were to continue to be friends. Once Lee relents, Elle rushes to find Noah who she learns is leaving town to go to college. Turns out, the boy in the costume (because their birthday party's dress code was costumed) who sat beside her in the car was not Lee but Noah and all her feeling that she had confessed thinking it was her best friend are now out for Noah to know as well.
They spend a happy week together before Noah leaves for college but the film ended with Elle contemplating if their long-distance relationship will turn out well or if they will succumb to the traps of it. However, the one thing that she is sure of is the fact that Noah would always stay close to her heart. Now, 'The Kissing Booth 2' will see Elle navigating the very traps of the relationship that she had expected.
'The Kissing Booth 2' is slated to release on July 24 and can be streamed on Netflix.