Why Heartstopper Forever's Biggest Surprise Needed to Happen
With Heartstopper Forever, Nick and Charlie’s love story came to a close. But it didn’t happen in the way you might have expected it to.
The Netflix movie took place over the course of a school year, with several characters considering their next steps after Truham-Higgs. The three main couples in the friendship group — Nick and Charlie, Darcy and Tara, and Elle and Tao — were all impacted by this change, but naturally, Nick and Charlie’s relationship was the primary focus.
Throughout the film, as we rooted for Nick and Charlie to go the distance, we were simultaneously (and repeatedly) reminded that teen romances rarely last. The result was a rather sobering look at how these sugary-sweet, idealism-filled, innocent relationships fare in the real world. And above all, it proved that it really is true what they say — in Heartstopper Forever, at least — the course of true love never did run smooth. If you haven’t caught up on the movie yet, you might want to look away now, as there’s major spoilers ahead.
Why Nick and Charlie’s Breakup Needed To Happen
For most of Heartstopper Forever, Nick was a mess. As well as dealing with the natural anxiety that comes with being on the precipice of leaving school, it became clear throughout the film that Charlie’s mental health struggles as depicted in the Heartstopper series hadn’t just been rough on him — they had impacted Nick, too. For instance, there was one scene where Nick admits to having a dream where Charlie died from his eating disorder, with him powerless to stop it.
His anxiety then continued to snowball throughout the movie, before the pair have a tense conversation at a fateful party which, to both of their surprise, ends in them splitting up. In this scene, Nick tells Charlie, “I’m only happy when I’m with you.” Charlie replies by saying, “I don’t think that’s how it should be.” And at that point, there’s no melodrama or plot-convenient miscommunications: Charlie is absolutely right.
While the root cause of their breakup was arguably their mutual (and unfounded) fear of holding the other back, Nick’s dream and that comment he made to Charlie demonstrate how, somewhere along the way, their relationship had become somewhat codependent, and to an extent, unhealthy.
As we all know, pinning all your happiness on one person isn’t just bad for you, it’s bad for the other person, as well. For these reasons, I feel like Nick and Charlie splitting up — even if it was temporary — was necessary. In my opinion, Nick especially needed time to grow and find meaning outside of the relationship: especially since he would be leaving for university soon. For most of the Netflix series, Nick and Charlie had been in each other’s pocket. That’s fine if you’re in school and seeing somebody everyday, but in the real world beyond the playground walls, that kind of dynamic just doesn’t work.
Slowly but surely, during their separation, the pair were able to heal in ways that wouldn’t have been possible if they had stayed together. Nick finally explored interests outside of rugby and being Charlie’s boyfriend by throwing himself into his part-time job at a dog kennels, while Charlie was able to overcome a major mental health setback with the support of his friends, family and therapist. After a period of time, the pair found their way back to each other in considerably healthier places than they were at the beginning of the film. As ironic as it sounds, breaking up was probably the thing that saved their relationship in the long-term.
Usually, second-act-split-ups are used as a plot device to keep a romance story interesting, but in Heartstopper Forever, it served a genuine purpose: demonstrating to its young and fairly impressionable audiences what a healthy relationship should look like, marking a clear distinction between romance and romanticism.
