Now & Then Review: Without Reinventing The Wheel, It Delivers What It Promises | Apple Tv+ Series

Cast: Marina de Tavira, Rosie Perez, José María Yazpik, Maribel Verdú

Director: Gideon Raff and Carlos Sedes

Streaming Platform: Apple Tv+ (click to watch)

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Review of Now & Then, the bilingual Apple TV+ thriller shot in Spanish and English that features Maribel Verdú and Eduardo Noriega in its cast. Premiere on May 20, 2022. Apple TV+ turns its sights on the Spanish-speaking public with Now & Then, its first project produced by Bambú. It is a series of eight episodes that will launch the first three on May 20 and continue to light a new one every Friday until the broadcast is completed on June 24.

We have already had access to the complete first season to tell you about it. And the first thing to point out is that it marks a milestone given that it is a co-production in which Spain participates for the first time, with a script shot in Spanish and English (and quite a few Spanglish moments) in which we travel to Miami. Now & Then has been created by the shortlist made up of Ramón Campos, Teresa Fernández-Valdés and Gema R. Neira. Rosie Perez, Maribel Verdú, José María Yazpik and Jorge López (Elite).

Now & Then Review: The Story

The plot takes us to move in parallel between the year 2000 and the present to meet a group of companions who meet again 20 years after a traumatic event in their lives: the death of one of them in circumstances that will go away. clarifying as the plot progresses. Why are faces seen again two decades later? Because they all receive an anonymous message in which someone tries to blackmail them by bringing the truth to light. The premise is very similar to I Know What You Did Last Summer, only here we are not dealing with a slasher, but rather the series takes the form of a police thriller.

Specifically, a researcher (who is also the only moral support that the viewer can cling to) becomes obsessed with understanding the events of the past, searching for the truth, and “dismantling” the facade behind which they all hide. This way they will see how the flimsy foundations on which they have built their lives shake: they all have something to hide. We soon realize that it is a generational portrait in which we see to what extent the passage of time has made them throw in the towel, become disenchanted with their dreams, become cynical or even take over those of others.

Now & Then is a thriller series with not excessively innovative implications: a criminal case that re-emerges after years and that involves a tenacious and insightful inspector, who never abandoned the case and who had to stop his investigations due to lack of evidence certain. This role is represented by Flora Neruda, who stands as a scrutinizing eye that follows every move of the group. Through the partial and gradual disclosure of the protagonists ‘psychologies through the mirror investigation of the police, the viewer is led to share the intentional interiority of each member of the friendly group, once united by friendship and love, now separated from’ selfishness and one’s social position.

The whole narrative is pervaded by that typical sense of bewilderment and perennial alarm that encompasses the entire structure of the series in a persistent loop, rendered through the presence of bugs, targets, and wiretaps that aim to bring out the detective story both from a diegetic point of view what extradiegetic.

Now & Then Review And Analysis

The serial structure is fluctuating, because it is configured through continuous temporal leaps that start from the present and merge into the tragic past of the protagonists: it is precisely in this way that we can understand the evolution of the five. Everyone has decided to overcome the trauma by imposing their subjectivity in a game of power and dysfunctional social affirmation, leading the viewer during the 8 episodes to understand how the protagonists are destined to succumb to their wrong and self-centered choices.

The representation of guilt and the consequence of one’s actions seems to be the pivot on which the whole story revolves, a choral story that through an alternate and tight montage manages to represent the perfect lives of each member of the group. An atypical group, disjointed by a force and presences that dominate the narrative imposing themselves as metaphysical essences both for the main characters and for the spectator himself, led to having to understand the narration simply from the point of view of the five supporting actors and their continuous destabilizing flashbacks.

As far as the form is concerned, Now & Then accuses the excessive duration of the episodes: to the lack of force of the script (some turns are more than predictable), joins the abundant padding and the somewhat clumsy underlines of the same ideas. A substantial part of the plot is a videotape in which the entire period in which the dramatic events of the past took place was recorded, but the series reveals information when it suits it without adhering to the logic of what is recorded, or what the characters know and the gaps that are filled with images in what would be flashbacks.

We must not fail to point out the fact that Now & Then aspires to revalidate by having a second season… although we do not know if we will continue moving between the same characters or with new ones. The last episode, in which the plot is closed, throws us a final mystery as a cliffhanger when two years later a new body appears.

We will only discover his identity if the audience grants his favor to fiction… by way of conclusion, it should be noted that the series has a lot of room for maneuvering to improve both technical aspects such as sound or photography and the delimitation of the plot and the rhythm of dosage of the information. And if the melodrama that borders on the soap opera is pruned a little, it wouldn’t go bad either. Among its strengths, are a very nice soundtrack composed by Federico Jusid and the international cast in which the always solvent Maribel Verdú and Rosie Pérez stand out, who show a great commitment to their character.

Be careful, because with Now & Then Apple TV + has laid the first stone. This is the inaugural product of its catalog aimed at the Spanish-speaking public so we will see more projects along the same lines in the coming months. Nor is it surprising as a strategy seeing the pull that series such as Welcome to Eden, Elite, or similar have around the world and the breadth of this market that had not been exploited so clearly until now. On the horizon, Alfonso Cuarón has announced the suspense series Disclaimer and Eugenio Derbez will soon shoot the comedy Acapulco in English and Spanish.

Now & Then Review: The Last Words

Far from being perfect, Now & Then takes advantage of its massive cast and soundtrack to compose a somewhat predictable crime thriller but it turned out to be a hook for the Spanish-speaking audience. Without reinventing the wheel, it delivers what it promises: fans of the genre will not be disappointed the soundtrack stands out.