Shelter Tv Series Review: Harlan Coben’s Compelling Plot Full of Twists and Turns
Cast: Jaden Michael, Mickey Bolitar, Constance Zimmer, Shira Bolitar, Abby Corrigan, Ema Winslow, Sage Linder, Rachel Caldwell, Adrian Greensmith
Created By: Allen MacDonald
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The first three episodes of the new Amazon Prime Video Original series Shelter Tv Series have been available on Prime Video since August 18. A series, based on the first book of the trilogy of young adult novels by Harlan Coben, focused on the attempts of young Mickey Bolitar (Jaden Michael) and his friends to shed light on the mystery that surrounds a quiet New Jersey town and its inhabitants. Fusing mystery and teen drama, these first episodes thus lay the foundations for an adventure that promises to be neither simple nor short, rich as it is in characters, unexpected twists, and secrets to reveal.
Adapted for the small screen by its author together with his daughter Charlotte, this transposition of the first chapter of the Mickey Bolitar saga reproduces – in a story, unlike most of Coben’s other works, expressly conceived for a younger target – the sense of mystery of a writer not new to adaptations of his novels (Tell no one by Guillaume Canet). What emerges, at least judging from the premises, is a series that manages to involve us, immediately immersing us in an intricate and fascinating mystery, which begins almost like a supernatural coming of age (winking at series like Stranger Things or The Midnight Club) and turns into something else altogether.
Shelter Tv Series Review: The Story Plot
Mickey Bolitar (Jaden Michael), after a tragic accident that turns his life upside down, is forced to move to his aunt Shira (Constance Zimmer) in a small town in New Jersey. A seemingly peaceful and harmless place that hides a lot of secrets related to a dark and violent past. Mickey befriends Spoon (Adrian Greensmith) and Ema (Abby Corrigan) resulting in a close-knit trio. When a young student goes missing, the three boys embark on a close-knit investigation. While mysterious disappearances, kidnappings, and unsuspected deaths intertwine, an intricate plot unfolds that forces the protagonists to confront their personal stories and hidden secrets, like the other characters involved. A dense web of mystery envelops the entire city of Kasselton, focusing in particular on the home of the old and mysterious Bat Lady, a woman who inspires fear in the children of the area and who hides disturbing secrets.
After the pilot episode, which lays some interesting foundations albeit with some stereotyped elements, the series takes off by masterfully delving into the characters who reveal unexpected nuances. Alongside the teenager Mickey, courageous but tormented by the demons of his past, we find Spoon friendly but not very popular within the school and Ema, determined but withdrawn and a victim of family pressure. Finally, Mickey‘s aunt is torn between the responsibilities due to the arrival of her nephew and the feelings deriving from the return to the village of an old youthful love. To accompany the main characters, a frame of supporting actors who fit well with the narrative structure and who all add (some more, some less) functional elements to the narrative.
The story starts from widely used bases, but from the second episode, the annoying feeling of being already seen gives way to a sincere curiosity in discovering the progressive development of the mysteries told. The facts are exposed through a series of clues scattered throughout the episodes so that the viewer can discover them and get involved with the characters. In the narration, there are no long explanations or excessively didactic sections that could interrupt the flow of the story. Indeed, the information is provided with a dropper, without however giving the impression of witnessing a stale or empty story.
Shelter Tv Series Review and Analysis
The show immediately enters the heart of the narrative, with an engaging rhythm and a succession of twists and turns that push the viewer to want to know more and more about the secrets of the quiet town of Kasselton. There is not much space for preambles and presentations: the dense network of mysteries begins to unfold from its first minutes. Who is the woman nicknamed the Bat Lady who lives in the creepy house on Hobart Avenue and, above all, Is the shocking revelation she makes to Mickey in the middle of the night true? Who are the men with dark glasses who seem to be so interested in some schoolboys and what does an old story set in the days of concentration camps have to do with the mysterious disappearances that take place in the city? All the adults in the place seem to know something unspeakable but it’s up to Mickey and his friends to find out what it is and why it continues to haunt them.
Take a small American town with a dark past made up of haunted houses and missing kids, add a mystery that seems to cloak everything in an unreal aura, and season it all with a splash of mystery and teen drama. You will have something similar to Shelter Tv Series. A series, taken from the cycle of novels by Harlan Coben, which seems to start in the best way, building an increasingly intricate and fascinating mystery, episode after episode. It is precisely this non-obvious approach to a material that is not always easy to handle, between different tones and genres, heterogeneous and dynamic characters all to be discovered, that makes these first episodes a mix that is engaging enough to want to continue watching. A story that hints at a very specific imagination, located between horror and thriller (from Black Phone to, of course, the horror universe of Stephen King), but knows how to give its development a certain amount of originality and unpredictability, early from debts and the most obvious models.
Thus a series emerges that, although it reduces the darker and more adult tones of the author’s previous works, never loses sight of its yellow and thriller soul. A work, also enhanced by the directions of Patricia Cardoso, Edward Ornelas, and Christina Choe, which knows how to create the right atmospheres and relaunch its mystery again and again, keeping its ambiguity intact until the end, that fine line between reality and the supernatural. After all, it is precisely the story and the atmosphere that make the difference in a series like Shelter Tv Series, which allow us to defer interpretations that are not always up to par (the not-very-incisive protagonist played by Jaden Michael) and overlook some too well-known dynamics (the complicated or tormented lives of young people and adults one step away from the stereotype). A construction of the plot and tension that has nothing to envy to the most popular and appreciated products of the genre and it is hoped that the series will be able to maintain until the end.
In this story that delves into the past – family, citizen, historical -, where the faults of the fathers fall tragically on the children and what was can always come back to be, it is as if Coben transformed his tragic heroes into a sort of version of them more youthful and light without detracting, for this reason, anything from the drama of the story or from the construction of the plot that is never childish or simplistic. Playing on different genres and imaginaries, from thrillers with horror nuances to supernatural coming-of-age stories, Shelter Tv Series thus proves to be a series that is certainly derivative but still capable of exerting its charm. The only thing that remains to be understood is whether the bet of aiming at a different target from the usual audience of the author’s transpositions will prove successful. What is certain is that Shelter Tv Series could very well be, with its lightness of tone and its complexity of writing, the mystery series of the summer.
Shelter Tv Series Review: The Last Words
From its first minutes, Shelter Tv Series can capture the viewer’s attention thanks to a compelling plot full of twists and turns, but it also delves into more complex issues than usual teen dramas, such as racial prejudice, child abuse, and mental health. Fans of young adult fiction, thrillers, and engaging plots will find in Shelter Tv Series all the prerequisites for appreciating a work of value that tells originally teenage love, friendship, and the typical difficulties of the college age, addressing even more mature themes towards an even more diversified audience.
Shelter Tv Series Review: Harlan Coben’s Compelling Plot Full of Twists and Turns - Filmyhype
Director: Allen MacDonald
Date Created: 2023-08-18 13:22
4
Pros
- The series knows how to handle its mix of thriller, mystery and teen drama well
- The mystery behind it, as far as we have been able to see so far, is engaging and well constructed
Cons
- Some interpretations aren't always up to par and the teen component sometimes falls into the stereotype
- It is not obvious that this more adolescent story compared to the author's other titles will actually find a response in a younger audience or will be able to satisfy even the fans of the more mature works
