Everything Now Series Review: Intense Coming-Of-Age Series Starring Sophie Wilde
Cast: Sophie Wilde, Lauryn Ajufo, Harry Cadby, Noah Thomas, Niamh McCormack, Sam Reuben, Robert Akodoto, Jessie Mae Alonzo, Vivienne Acheampong, Alex Hassell, Stephen Fry
Created By: Ripley Parker
Steaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Speaking of Everything Now, on Netflix from October 5, 2023, the best thing is to start with the labels. Coming-of-age, that is a coming-of-age story. Dramedy is, a hybrid form, balanced between drama and comedy. Teen series, openly queer: teenage life and fluid and available representation of identity and sexuality, how life is (or at least how it should be). The problem of labels is the strong point of labels: the ruthless, exasperated synthesis of a complicated reality. The labels also tell us something important about this eight-episode series created by Ripley Parker. They tell us of an important ambition, of the desire to be many things at the same time. The cast is young and talented. The protagonist is the talented Sophie Wilde, an Australian of origin, and Londoner for the occasion. Her 2023 has been a killer year: first Talk To Me, then this.
The path of her character is marked by important words such as death, love, freedom, happiness, normality, and mental health. The first keyword, the one with which the series begins, is however another: anorexia. When we think back to the period of adolescence, it is normal to bring to mind all those typical moments of that period which were as exciting as it was complex: the butterflies in the stomach for the first love, the evening outings with friends, the arguments with parents who just didn’t seem to be able to understand our world. Maybe the adrenaline from something we shouldn’t have done. For millions of adolescents who suffer from eating disorders, however, these memories will be somehow contaminated by another, much more all-consuming sensation: that of hunger.
The new teen drama which landed on Netflix on October 5th starts precisely from this assumption, telling the story of London teenager Mia Polanco, who has just been discharged from a clinic to treat anorexia and is now eager to take a bite out of her life. As we will see in our review of Everything Now, the series created by Ripley Parker provides a sincere and sensitive portrait of what it means to suffer from an eating disorder, making the viewer participate in all the intrusive and mendacious thoughts of its protagonist. A protagonist splendidly played by Sophie Wilde (Talk To Me) who gives us a mature and touching performance, absolutely credible in the role of a young girl struggling with her inner demons but also of a simple teenager who just wants to be like her peers. If you loved series like Sex Education and Heartstopper, you absolutely cannot miss Everything Now.
Everything Now: The Story Plot
Mia (Sophie Wilde) has just left a psychiatric clinic, she was there for seven months, and anorexia had cornered her. She goes out with the approval of Dr. Nell (Stephen Fry). At home, she finds everything as usual, or almost. She has a more linear relationship with her father, Rick (Alex Hassell), than with her mother, Viv (Vivienne Acheampong), a totem of perfection and success; difficult to establish a dialogue with her. The little brother, Alex (Sam Reuben), speaks little and has to settle for the second row, which in pole position always has Mia’s problems. Above all, the girl finds her friends again, the real ones. Becca (Lauryn Ajufo), Cam (Harry Cadby), and Will (Noah Thomas). Mia missed seven months, which isn’t an eternity for an adult, but when you’re almost 17 it’s a different story. Many things have happened in the outside world and the lives of the people around her. She tries to fit in, Mia, to keep up. In doing so, she makes two big mistakes.
First of all, he deludes himself that he can go back to how things were before the hospitalization. It is not possible. Then, the second mistake, he tries to have everything right away: sex, love, freedom, drugs, and alcohol. The quickest route to indigestion. Everything Now immediately clarifies that the protagonist’s problem is double and concerns the body and the soul. The girl doesn’t like herself and she tries to attack her body, exhausting it until it disappears, hence the refusal of food: a way like any other to banish shame, the sense of failure. To get out of trouble, he must find the courage to look in the mirror, understand who he is and what he wants, stop wishing harm to his body, seek authentic contact with others, and accept the risks and promises of contact. A great challenge, which the girl tries to solve in the most basic way possible: by drawing up a list of things to do.
Small, large, important, superfluous things. But necessary, vital; above all, things to do together. Everything Now uses the list and punctuates it for a deliberately fragmented narrative, episodic to the nth degree. To give coherence to the whole, the exploration of the intimate and practical problems of a generation of young hearts who are taking life into account and discovering that growing up is a complicated job. It’s not just Mia who colors Everything Now‘s map of desires and needs. Everyone is looking for something. This applies to Bec, a brainiac forced by life to grow up quickly. For Noah, an explosion of energy that hides unexpected fragilities. Cam is an aspiring Latin lover who struggles to give a name to her feelings. But also, for all the new faces that emerge from the margins to disrupt Mia’s life. Alison (Niamh McCormick), the prettiest girl in school, has a very unconventional personality. And then there is Carli (Jessie Mae Alonzo), who with her mystery opens a breach in the protagonist’s heart and becomes the light at the end of the tunnel. A great responsibility. Perhaps excessive.
Everything Now and Analysis
Everything Now chooses to leave out the triggers of Mia’s eating disorder to highlight the girl’s internal battle and all the invisible daily obstacles she faces. In this way, anorexia is exposed and presented for what it is: a subtle and sometimes fatal disease that causes dysmorphia in people who suffer from it, pushing them to tell lies to themselves and others. Through the girl’s intrusive thoughts – of which the viewer is made a participant – we realize what her fears are (like the school canteen, or mirrors) and insecurities (first of all her femininity, which she defines as “flawed”) and also how she conceals herself during the day to appear “normal” in the eyes of those around her. Frank and sensitive at the same time, the series talks about a very specific experience – that of the protagonist with an anorexia problem – but it also wants to be a universal story: just like Mia, her friends are also facing invisible battles, in desperation attempt to stay afloat in that stormy sea that is adolescence, without being crushed by the weight of social expectations and the judgment of peers.
Sophie Wilde – who at the time of writing is at the cinema with Talk To Me, the best horror film of the year – is truly convincing in the role of Mia Polanco, giving us a touching and mature performance, capable of making us empathize in a very short time with the emotions of the protagonist. With her multi-faceted interpretation, the actress manages to express the dichotomy – normal for a girl of Mia’s age – that characterizes her character: on the one hand a young woman struggling with her internal demons, on the other, a teenager who just wants to keep up with her friends and who, for this reason, throws herself headlong into experiences that perhaps she wasn’t yet ready to live. Wilde’s performance is also supported by an excellent supporting cast. From the inseparable friends who accompany Mia on that difficult uphill journey that is healing to the members of the girl’s family, always ready to help her despite sometimes not being able to understand her: each of them has their own useful and well-defined role as well as a personal arc narrative.
Similarity of environment, and average age of the cast aside, it doesn’t bear comparison with Sex Education; An excellent hook for marketing, however, is to bring the two operations closer together. The strength of Everything Now is the complexity of open, “democratic” writing. Although built around Mia, her needs, and her problems, the references to anorexia and the attention – increasingly central in contemporary storytelling – for mental health do not end up engulfing the story and caging the complexity of the protagonist in one schematic and tearful stereotype: the girl with problems. Sophie Wilde gives Mia a slightly timeless grace – a charisma that works today as it might have many years ago – electricity, fragility, and a nervousness that is never over the top. In control. Ripley Parker, however, wants something else, she takes care to broaden her gaze. The series lives and breathes through the virtues and weaknesses of its supporting characters.
Exploration of the dark side of the moon works. Faced with Mia’s problems, the rest retreats, but for how long? Everything Now is interested in everyone’s point of view; it brings to light the unsaid. There is a limit beyond which the girl’s need for attention takes on selfish contours; an involuntary and inevitable selfishness, which must be understood and accepted, but which cannot help but create a dangerous hierarchy, first the girl, then everyone else. Talking about mental health without falling into the traps of pietism, restoring every angle, is an exercise in democracy and solidarity, in inclusiveness. Also, the point of honor of a series that has understood that the only way to convey the complexity of life is to represent it in the most honest way possible.
Mia needs help, it’s her right, but she must also learn: to help and to ask for help. Everything Nowit is the photograph of a restless age, full of potential and simply indomitable. There is a lot in the series, everything, perhaps too much. Life in eight episodes? It makes you think of sex, love, death, drugs, alcohol, family life, especially dysfunctional ones, fluid identities and immutable psychologies, secrets, and the unshakable strength of friendship. The common thread is Mia’s arduous road to peace (inner and otherwise), the longed-for normality, which the series brings up several times but is careful not to clarify. Normal is what expresses our authenticity without hurting others, rather, enjoying them together. We are alone and together united, in the fabric of our destiny, to that of countless others. One of the many juicy reflections that Everything Now shows on the margins of the story: like any story that takes on its shoulders a weight greater than it can bear, it sometimes fails frustratingly. But ambition, the courage to exaggerate, matters more than imperfections. This applies to the characters, why shouldn’t it apply to the series?
The image of sober elegance refined but without preciousness, electronic and indie sounds (pop but not only). Attention to the contemporary, in evaluating the sacrosanct importance of mental health and in speaking without rhetoric about eating disorders. Modern topics, but the underlying emotional dynamics are universal and it is in this continuous pas de deux between opposites, body and soul, young people and adults, happiness and trauma, formal conventionality and courage of the themes, that lies the secret of Everything Now. The mix of drama and humor is intriguing, as illogical as life. In addition to the aforementioned Sophie Wilde, the depth of the supporting characters, they are a single body and so they should be mentioned, is a plus point for a series which, not always capable of satiating its ambitions, manages to be the story of one and many, at the same time.
Everything Now The Last Words
Everything Now provides a sincere and sensitive portrait of what it means to suffer from an eating disorder, making the viewer participate in all the intrusive and mendacious thoughts of its protagonist. A protagonist splendidly played by Sophie Wilde (Talk To Me) who gives us a mature and touching performance, absolutely credible in the role of a young girl struggling with her inner demons but also of a simple teenager who just wants to be like her peers. Overall, Everything Now is a solid teen drama with a lot to offer. It’s a show that is both entertaining and thought-provoking, and it’s sure to resonate with many viewers.
Everything Now Series Review: Intense Coming-Of-Age Series Starring Sophie Wilde - Filmyhype
Director: Ripley Parker
Date Created: 2023-10-05 17:53
3.5
