The Kissing Booth 3: An Insight Into Elle And Noah's Journey

The Kissing Booth 3 has sparked conversations among fans, primarily concerning the ending where Elle and Noah ride off into the sunset on their motorcycles after a six-year separation. Their reunion at the carnival is filled with nostalgia, yet it raises questions about whether they truly got back together. This ambivalence has become a hot topic on social media, prompting various interpretations of the film's conclusion.

In an exclusive interview, Vince Marcello, the writer and director of The Kissing Booth 3, shared his thoughts on the film's ending and the characters' journey. He believes that Elle and Noah do indeed find their way back to each other, suggesting a hopeful future for the couple. Marcello's insights reveal the deeper themes of growth, maturity, and the complexities of love that underpin the narrative.

The film’s ending, while leaving some fans wanting more, highlights the importance of personal growth in relationships. It reflects a journey where characters not only navigate their romantic lives but also learn valuable lessons about self-discovery and the significance of choices. As we delve deeper into the film's narrative, we uncover the layers of character development and the emotional stakes involved in Elle and Noah's journey.

Image Credit: Netflix

The Kissing Booth 3 ended with Elle and Noah riding off into the sunset together on their motorcycles. They had crossed paths for the first time in 6 years at the carnival — and the kissing booth is still happening — and it’s clear that there are still feelings between them. However, the movie’s ending has been the subject of a lot of discussion on social media, particularly about why Elle and Noah didn’t *technically* reunite.

HollywoodLife got EXCLUSIVE scoop straight from The Kissing Booth 3 writer/director Vince Marcello about Elle and Noah’s fate. Rest assured, he believes these two do get back together. He explained their reunion at the carnival and what it meant for these two characters. Read our Q&A below:

Joey King Jacob Elordi — Jacob Elordi and Joey King as Noah and Elle. (Netflix)

There has been a lot of discussion about the ending on social media. There’s been some discourse about not having Elle and Noah officially together in the end. Was there a moment while you were writing the script that they were going to end up together officially?
Vince Marcello: I guess it becomes the definition of what is official. There was never a moment where he ran down the stairs. No one ever even considered it. As you always do when you build a triangle, which is really a four-sided thing if you include Lee, but just the pure Marco-Noah part, you are going to have a third of the fans who will be disappointed that she’s not with Marco. You’re going to have some conversation that’s going to happen which, in my opinion, isn’t always a negative thing. But what we began to say was we felt the most important thing, because these movies at the end of the day really are romantic films and they’re fizzy and have all those characteristics of romantic comedy, but it’s really coming of age stories. The coming of age aspect of it must have been something that showed Elle’s growth path, the idea of pleasing the people in your life in order to feel your love for them. That became the priority, so when we figured out how we wanted to end that story and where we kind of wanted to take it, then it became an aspect of what is the end terms of her romantic life? And that was really where the idea of them coming together at the carnival came in, which allowed us to bring the kissing booth back in. It was an organic way of bringing the kissing booth back into the kids’ lives who were no longer in high school. It came from my world that there was a fair every year that kids from school would go to all the time. That’s when this idea came that we wanted to show that these two individuals have grown up, they both acknowledge that they’re mature now, and you create the delightful possibility of what if. When you’re talking about iconography and movies and you see two people driving off the sunset together, that’s a pretty strong image. It’s interesting how much conversation is involved. I’m actually delighted that people want to talk about it that much, but it was certainly our intention to imply that there was a very strong likelihood that these two would give it another try. The kind of growing, slightly bittersweet, but the still hopeful ending was in the DNA from the very beginning. I know it’s always a situation of giving fans what they want, but from the beginning, we were set with the objective of trying to do something that we were never going to completely please everyone. Plenty of people didn’t even want her to be with Noah.

I kept thinking as I was scrolling through TikTok, did we watch the same movie? I’ve watched enough TV and enough movies to know what that ending implied, and it alluded to them getting back together.
Vince Marcello: It’s open to interpretation, but I think Joey [King] also did something in her interviews, which set it up. Joey’s very sly and wonderful in terms of giving great interviews before a movie starts to help create interest by creating a sense of greater ambiguity because she didn’t want to say yea or nay. In the interview, I think it also teed that up a little bit, but I’ll say it once again just to make sure the point is clear… the conversation about it is because everyone cares. We’re also dealing with an international franchise of people from all over the world interpreting images, so there’s going to be some that, which is the rise of the “movie explained” phenomenon on the internet. I mean, we didn’t have this when we were kids, and we were able to watch movies just fine. It’s an interesting phenomenon of our time. Everyone’s part of the conversation. If it didn’t matter to people, they wouldn’t talk about it.

So, just to set the record straight, do they get back together in your mind?
Vince Marcello: In my mind, they do. They do give it another shot.

Okay, great. I know they mentioned Lee and Rachel’s wedding. I was thinking, “Great, that would be perfect timing.”
Vince Marcello: Through the lines and the dialogue and the structure of the scene, you’ll hear two people who are giving each other signals that they want to try again. Elle got a motorcycle and chooses to tell him that. He taught her how to ride. When Noah says “if you have time,” and Elle says, “I’ve got time.” There are all these lines that say, yes, this is going to happen. But as is always the case, people have to want it for themselves. But in my mind, these are two people that want to give it another try. We hope that they will give it another try and it will work.

The movie does have a 6-year time jump. Was it always going to be 6 years?
Vince Marcello: It was one of those things that we looked at, and the key was I wanted to be able to have them both more in their careers. With Noah going to become a lawyer, the idea was to get him out of law school at the time they [Noah and Elle] were both done. It felt like they both are at a crossroads. They both have just finished school, he’s about to work, she’s got a job. If you just looked at the pure numbers part of it, that made sense as a good time jump. I will say that most of the people that I know that got back together with their high school sweethearts did so after college. They’d been through that process of dating other people, coming back, settling in, and their mind turned back to a first love. I have several friends that ended up doing that. It was debated, but we landed on that number pretty quick when you looked at undergrad plus law school or undergrad for the kids who were a year behind.