![]() THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Hulu’s intriguing but frustrating book adaptation Conversations With Friends can’t quite match the heights of Normal People. It’s still a notch or two above your average romantic drama and offers some smart emotional insight along the way, but in the end, it’s a fleeting dalliance that fades too quickly. Conversations is dutifully faithful to Rooney’s prose, as Normal People was, but that means it suffers from the same flaws, too. The first novel by the 26-year-old Irish writer Sally Rooney, Conversations With Friends, wears its influences on its sleeve. The story could use more of Bobbi and Melissa to spice things up, but Kirke barely makes more than a cameo as Melissa, and Lane’s Bobbi is seriously underwritten - more of a symbol than a fully realized character. (Frances’ home life is dreary, with an unreliable alcoholic dad and a mysterious health issue.)Īlwyn makes a dashing romantic lead as Nick, but his scenes with Oliver’s Frances fall into a repetitive rut after a while. Frances can be hard to read, though, which makes it harder for us to connect with her, and with the show’s narrow focus on her, it all starts to feel a bit claustrophobic. Oliver has a huge load to carry here in her first major role - the camera spends a lot of time on her face - and she carries it well, lending Frances a captivating vulnerability. It’s also a tall order for the actors to equal the stunning work done by Normal People stars Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Conversations With Friends is frequently lovely to look at, in a measured way that reflects the way the characters look at one another intently, while trying to seem casual. (All those significant glances don’t add up to much of significance, really.) It’s true to life, you might say… but that doesn’t mean it’s dramatically satisfying. It’s leisurely paced, to the point of being snoozy. But the series meanders a bit after that initial rush and ends up getting stuck in narrative lulls and loops. ![]() ![]() A picturesque seaside vacation acts as an emotional pressure cooker, and the early episodes hit on some messy, complicated truths about love and relationships. The story unfolds along fairly predictable lines, though: the giddy rush of infidelity, followed by nagging guilt and jealousy. Plus, the sex scenes have genuine heat to them, as Normal People‘s did they feel real and intimate in a way we rarely see, leaving the participants sweaty and flushed and not entirely photogenic. The conversations are brimming with subtext, punctuated by lots of longing looks and significant glances. From the makers of Normal People, the BBC Three and Hulu adaptation focuses on a ‘ménage à quatre’ between. The new drama is Hulu’s second limited series adaptation of a Sally Rooney novel and is coming. Rooney specializes in crafting relatable characters and natural dialogue in her books, and Conversations has the same grounded feel Normal People had, albeit slightly heightened and juicier this time. Conversations with Friends review: Sally Rooney adaptation revels in the unspoken. It’s very obvious what the makers of Conversations with Friends are hoping will happen with it. Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Reality Series Dead at Hulu in Wake of Sexual Assault Allegations (Report)
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