Hulu's adaptation of Sally Rooney's bestselling novel elevates familiar tropes and uses them to break (and then unbreak) your heart.
"Normal People" on Hulu stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell.By the time her second novel, “Normal People,” came out last year, the Irish novelist had already been deemed the great millennial writer by various august publications — a weighty reputation to rest on two subtle, unassuming books about young people exploring love, lust, art, ambition and politics.
This is perhaps why the first episode left me feeling a little empty and unenthusiastic. It’s an immediately intense story but performed in a quite muted way. This ended up really working for me, but it made it harder to get into the show. How did you feel about both the watchability and the adaptation’s relationship to the book?It certainly hews closely to the novel; nearly every line of dialogue was familiar, as was the unfolding of the narrative, scene by scene.
One aspect of the series that I found particularly compelling in its screen adaptation was the sexual intimacy. Sex is a major part of this story — unlike many love stories that revolve around young people, “Normal People” doesn’t shy away from female desire, and all of the messiness and oddity and heat of sexual awakening. Marianne is the driving force behind much of her and Connell’s physical relationship, from their high school days on.
But I think we have to talk about the romance. “Normal People” is a teen love story, and some critics have pointed out that it’s packed with tropes straight from the CW: the nerdy girl who gets a makeover, the popular guy who stands up for her, the star-crossed but undying love.
As you note, the show destabilizes the more cloying elements of its genre, and is actually quite astute about how social power operates. In “She’s All That,” the hero is hot, popular and rich, while the heroine is nerdy, ostracized and poor. “Normal People” redistributes the blessings, allowing it to unpack how Marianne’s money and proximity to the cultural elite lend her one kind of social currency, while Connell’s athleticism and rugged good looks lend him another.
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