SimplyScripts Discussion Board
Blog Home - Produced Movie Script Library - TV Scripts - Unproduced Scripts - Contact - Site Map
ScriptSearch
Welcome, Guest.
It is March 29th, 2024, 5:35am
Please login or register.
Was Portal Recent Posts Home Help Calendar Search Register Login
Please do read the guidelines that govern behavior on the discussion board. It will make for a much more pleasant experience for everyone. A word about SimplyScripts and Censorship


Produced Script Database (Updated!)
One Week Challenge - Who Wrote What and Writers' Choice.


Scripts studios are posting for award consideration

Short Script of the Day | Featured Script of the Month | Featured Short Scripts Available for Production
Submit Your Script

How do I get my film's link and banner here?
All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
Forum Login
Username: Create a new Account
Password:     Forgot Password

SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Reviews    Movie, Television and DVD Reviews  ›  Normal People(BBC/Hulu mini-series) Moderators: Nixon
Users Browsing Forum
No Members and 7 Guests

 Pages: 1
Recommend Print
  Author    Normal People(BBC/Hulu mini-series)  (currently 222 views)
AlsoBen
Posted: November 14th, 2020, 7:33pm Report to Moderator
Been Around



Location
Australia
Posts
727
Posts Per Day
0.16
This review will be confounded by the fact I watched the show and read the book almost immediately one after the other. I've also read a lot of articles starting the novelist Sally Rooney is somehow the millennial author of her generation, which is so reductive and untrue.

Basic summary: a 12-part miniseries abut two Irish teenagers who start a secret relationship in high school that follows them, on and off, into college any beyond.

I will go ahead and say that I watched the whole thing (and read the book) very quickly, mostly due to how compelling it is. Despite all it's flaws, it's well acted, directed, and there's a lot of scenes (screenplays by Rooney herself and an English playwright) that are so thoughtful that I loved.

But this did have many flaws, and I think the series and book are overhyped to their detriment.

The summary I wrote is reductive, but this is six hour's worth of two straight white people having (beautifully choregraphed and photographed) sex with each other and then not speaking for months at a time, then meeting each other again the next year, and so on. It spans their final year at school and all of their university and yet all of the character development happens in the last two episodes (of 12). Especially Connell - he is the quiet, strong and silent type (which is why he keeps miscommunicating with Marianne) until one of the penultimate episodes where he lets it all go to a counsellor. The actor playing him rightfully won an Emmy for that scene but it's his only scene of actually being expressive.

Meanwhile, the show treats Marianne's self-subjugation and submissive sex weirdly. Does she have a fetish or does she just have low self esteem? Rooney and her co-writer never clarify and present all of her bondage scenes as traumatic, so I understand why the BDSM groups are up in arms about representation.

Furthermore, this is classified by some reviews as being "class conscious" romance - didn't sense that at all. Yes, Marianne comes from a wealthy family and Connell from a poor one. But this isn't exploited for conflict nearly as much as a "class conscious" miniseries should. They have a few conversations about their economic differences and that's about it. Even in the book, it's more something the characters internally muse about rather than actually act upon. Sally Rooney, the writer, is supposedly a Marxist, but she must not feel too strongly about Marxism.

In fact, more conflict (and there isn't a lot of conflict and plot here at all) comes from the power dynamic Connell developed with Marianne in high-school by asking her not tell anyone they were hooking up. For the rest of their relationship, she is too afraid of confronting him about anything to communicate properly and acts submissively to everyone around her - despite being the wealthiest person on screen. This is not class consciousness, this is class discussion at most.

Re: conflict - even though the series is compelling enough, it drags in the last 1/3. The highlight of that last period is Connell's breakdown at therapy and that's a short scene. The first few episodes set at high-school are definitely the most entertaining of the series and that's because they rely on some classic Netflix high school drama tropes.

Re: writerly laziness - Connell is supposedly an amazing writer who gets invited to a new York MFA program (I guess on a scholarship, because he's poor) and edits a literary magazine but there is NO Mention of him writing anything at all until the last 3 episodes. We never see him writing, we just here other characters say "Connell is an amazing writer" and we're supposed to believe it. Lazy.

Anyway - not saying I hated it or disliked it. Just certainly not the best miniseries of the year, nor is Sally Rooney the writer of her generation.

This beautifully shot, acted, and even made rural Ireland (depicted as a hellhole for its characters) seem beautiful and Dublin appropriately claustrophobic.

EDIT: Like, I recommend you watch this, no doubt, if you have a spare day or two. But's a 6.5/10 and not a 10/10 as the media has depicted.



Revision History (2 edits; 1 reasons shown)
AlsoBen  -  November 14th, 2020, 8:32pm
Logged
Private Message
LC
Posted: November 14th, 2020, 10:08pm Report to Moderator
Administrator



Location
The Great Southern Land
Posts
7582
Posts Per Day
1.34
I agree with that summary wholeheartedly, Ben.
Bear in mind I watched this when it first came out so it's quite a few months ago now.

My take on it overall - compelling but frustrating to watch because of what you said, and because of quite a few other loose ends which I'm going to presume were covered more in the book. *

Neither character ever really says what they think which causes misunderstandings and plenty of near soap-opera angst. Of course you could argue that perfectly as a case of first love, heartbreak, reconciliation and everything in between. While they're both at school and the relationship is a clandestine one I could run with it but later on at university it elicited quite a bit of eye-rolling and groaning from my SO, and me too. I just wanted to shake both of them at times. I never quite bought into the social outcast/nerdy characterisation of Marianne, (at school) nor the problematic power dynamics that were meant to be at play with their differing social classes.

The full frontal love scenes while at first were brave and a bit shocking (given male actors rarely expose themselves fully,) soon became boring to the point of - right, another scene of let's get our gear off. Daring and self-conscious all in one - and Marianne's sexual proclivities for enjoying pain, beyond kink, were never really explained and became irritating.

* The relationship dynamic with Marianne's mother and her brother (what was up with them?) - from disdain to
outright abuse - I can only assume that was covered more in the book too but it just left me a stymied.

Overall, I kept being drawn back into it but it was also a bit of a trial to watch. Too self-conscious, too self-indulgent, too much with the doe-eyed and often mute performances and it always felt like it was just skirting the surface with every topic it introduced - never breaking new ground on sex and sexual imbalances, class, feminism, BDSM etc.

I watched Daisy Edgar-Jones in the revamped version of War of the World's shortly afterwards - this time playing doe-eyed near-blind girl with extra sensory perception to the alien invaders. It had its moments.

It will be interesting to see how she fares in the upcoming Where The Crawdads Sing.


Logged
Private Message Reply: 1 - 3
AlsoBen
Posted: November 14th, 2020, 10:26pm Report to Moderator
Been Around



Location
Australia
Posts
727
Posts Per Day
0.16
Yes, spot on LC. And regarding your questions whether the book answers any of those questions better -

No, not really. The book is equally opaque in many ways. We get a window into Connell and Marianne, definitely, but their inner monologues are not particularly surprising and don't explain their actions very well.

I liked Rooney's minimalist prose mostly, but she also doesn't do dialogue punctuation in the novel. So it will just be (for instance)


Quoted Text
I'm going to the shops, Marianne says to Connell.


Why go minimalist if you're going to make dialogue so hard to follow? No speech marks means any lengthy dialogue scene becomes hard to parse.

The book DOES touch on their miscommunication as a theme a little more deftly. Like the last few chapters become almost self-aware that pretty much any interaction between the pair, Marianne is going to take as Connell hating her and Connell the same. But it's too sitcom like and full of "misunderstandings" that a simple two-word SMS would fix! Rant over.

Maybe we're meant to be frustrated by these people, and it's not like it ruined the book - I read it cover to cover last weekend. Shrug.

EDIT: Regarding Marianne's abusive family, the book is a little clearer and establishes it earlier than the show. I thought it made perfect sense in the book why her brother acts that way and the type of person her mother must be to ignore it, but Rooney never spells it out (a good thing).

In the show it's very odd and stilted and never really sets the scene properly for Marianne's experience of family abuse - it just happens. Especially because (in the show), she whispers that her Dad used to hit her Mum to Connell while they're in bed together - if you miss it or can't understand west Irish accent (I used subtitles), it never makes any sense.

EDIT: I think I liked Edgar-Jones' performance as Marianne more than you did, but I agree that Marianne's characterization is borderline doe-eyed. Even in the book, it felt icky to have the main female character (and Marianne and Connell are the only characters at all, in the book, with any personality) constantly being submissive and being abused. Of course that happens to women, but there are many more woman who are just as strong-willed and complicated as a man. It shocks me that a female author like Rooney felt OK with this?



Revision History (2 edits; 1 reasons shown)
AlsoBen  -  November 14th, 2020, 10:40pm
Logged
Private Message Reply: 2 - 3
LC
Posted: November 15th, 2020, 12:27am Report to Moderator
Administrator



Location
The Great Southern Land
Posts
7582
Posts Per Day
1.34
Weird then the way Sally Rooney writes it? No punctuation sounds like slackness. As with screenwriting there are probably fashions and styles that take hold.

Final thing I'll add is I really think Rooney tries to have it both ways with the character of Marianne - setting her up to be a lone wolf and a strong-willed one at that, then submissive in being unable to articulate what she wants, how she feels, how she lets herself be treated etc.

You could always argue the contradictions are a part of being that young and not very worldly I suppose, and the apparent cycle of abuse.

I looked up why Alan hated Marianne so much cause all I could remember was how jarring those first scenes with the brother were. I came across some of the the differences between book and on film.

Apparently the character of Alan spits on her in the book?

And on film: -

In the show, this interaction is more nuanced, less overtly cruel. After the violent incident—Alan douses Marianne’s head in dishwater rather than spitting on her—Denise tells Marianne, “You’re very different, you and your brother. It’s difficult for him.” When Marianne asks why she puts up with it, Denise responds, “What do you think I should do? Kick him out? How do you think I should handle this, exactly? 'Cause I’d love to have your insight. Because I’m trying to do the best I can.”

We eventually learn that Denise endured abuse at the hands of her husband. This conversation gives us deeper insight into how Denise is trapped within a cycle of abuse. She might want to help her daughter, but she can’t— she’s as caught in the web as Marianne is. We don't get this much clarity in the book


Right, then. This stuff just gets stuck in my craw. So, like mother like daughter (if Marianne doesn't get her act together and get some therapy)   and Alan's a chip off the ol' block.

And, Connell to the rescue with the ensuing knight in shining armour scene that follows.

I just think Rooney missed a broader empowering moment for women there and an opportunity for Marianne to be her own saviour and break the mould. Like you said, Ben, a few too many mixed messages and contradictions with the characters imho.

But worth watching for sure.
Thanks for the review. With so much streaming available I'd almost forgotten about it.

P.S. I often flip subtitles on or rewind for mumbling dialogue in U.S. films.
Hubby's family being Irish, and me going there a few times meant I could catch most of this and if I didn't he just translated.  


Logged
Private Message Reply: 3 - 3
 Pages: 1
Recommend Print

Locked Board Board Index    Movie, Television and DVD Reviews  [ previous | next ] Switch to:
Was Portal Recent Posts Home Help Calendar Search Register Login

Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post polls
You may not post attachments
HTML is on
Blah Code is on
Smilies are on


Powered by E-Blah Platinum 9.71B © 2001-2006