Forever in 2025 is Still Timeless

In all the press about new Netflix series Forever, the three converging timelines might be the least discussed element. The quintessential teen romance of 2025 is inspired by the Judy Blume novel published a literal fifty years ago – but also set in 2018, a time just far enough away from recent horrors to somehow feel nostalgic and sun-kissed in a way that feels much more innocent and beautiful, though we wouldn’t have said that at the time. 

There’s a lot of irony there, of course. The original creative brief for Judy Blume’s Forever was her teenage daughter’s request for “a story about two kids who have sex and neither of them has to die”; meanwhile, despite the relative sun-kissed calm of most of the series, creator Mara Brock Akil said she wanted to set the series in 2018,  “a time in which Black families were screaming in the vacuum of their own terror...when the parents were heightened in their fear factor of parenting.”  In other words, 50 years later, the wish –  that two kids can fall in love, do it, and neither of them has to die – is the same. Whenever you fall in love first, Forever reminds us, the stakes are incredibly high. 

As Keisha and Justin, Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr. and do the impossible – when they’re together, they make us forget about everything else. True, there are other romantic interests, friends, and a web of Black wealth explored through LA private schools and vacation destinations. But none of those matter when Justin tells Keisha his feelings through songs. When she gets to be young and inexperienced with him despite the veneer she carries around elsewhere. When they reunite after having been separated for a long time, the embrace they share isn’t hot and sexy – it’s exhilarating and joyful. I found you again. You’re still here. These feelings that transcend time and technology remind us of what it’s like when your whole world is one person. 

Judy Blume books are iconic because they’re unflinchingly honest – about friends, sex, parental inadequacies, being a not-great person sometimes even if you know better... in this Forever, Justin and Keisha are Black teenagers experiencing their hometown LA, and the world in general, in a pre-George Floyd, pre-pandemic world infused with social media. Their families – particularly their mothers’ – expectations and hopes for them play out in very modern ways specific to the dreams Black families have for their children born in the shadow of 9/11. 

But the feelings? Finding someone and wanting someone and feeling drunk on the excitement of knowing you both have those cravings and curiosity – those are universal. That saying “every generation thinks they invented sex”? That’s happening to Justin and Keisha vividly onscreen. Once they get through various phone-based hurdles – arguably the biggest struggle for the show’s pacing – we are IN IT with them and all we want is their happiness. 

‘Okay okay okay but is it sexy, though!?’ Honestly? Not exactly. That is, things are sexy for Justin and Keisha, but for the viewer they’re played as glorious, sun-soaked wish-fulfillment (or comedy, depending.) Mindful of the character’s ages, nothing is sexualized – romanticized, yes, deeply! – but this is not about titillation. It’s closer to watching baby adults start to walk: tentative, unbalanced, but carefully guarded by parents who watch them. 

Those parents, by the way, are the other best part of the show. Justin’s parents, Keisha’s mom and grandpa, and both their extended families show up early and often. It’s clear that even as these kids embark on a new journey all their own, they’re cradled by people who love them. Though it’s obvious they all have loud and definite opinions on how Keisha and Justin should run their lives, romantic and otherwise, it’s clear they’re going to be there. As Justin’s mom, Karen Pittman, who is a standout on The Morning Show (and also comes off WAY taller on that show somehow?), is the absolute beating heart of this one, feeling all the feels as if she were experiencing them herself, but also doing her best to let the kids make their own mistakes. She’s not perfect at it. It’s hard! It’s glorious to watch her struggle, because she’s doing it both as a parent and the teen she was 5 minutes ago…

If you never read the book, Forever is a delicious binge. If you wore it out passing it under desks in your classroom, the series is like a companion piece – seeing the story in another dimension (and, as in 2023’s Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, there are little Easter Eggs for devout Blume fans.) Wherever you are on the spectrum, you owe it to yourself to let the overwhelm of that first love and lust wash over you. For a moment, when you’re in their world, Justin and Keisha let us forget there will ever be anything after these sun-dappled firsts. They make us believe right now can truly be Forever.