Abby (Sydney Fliff, left) and Leila (Alivia Alin Lind)
Netflix
Characteristic
May Martin, Netflix
Like most people, I suspect that I do not really like thinking about my teenage years-time too much thoughtful and too little self-awareness. But, despite what kind of protracted embarrassment that I could feel, I have never seen adolescence as any mistake or aberration with which we would ideally end.
This is not so for many characters in CharacteristicA series of riddles of eight parts from the writer-comedian May Martin. It is located at the mysterious Academy in a fictional small town of tall pines, Vermont, which promises to reassure naughty teenagers and solve adolescence. The head of the school is Evelyn Wade (Tony Colllet), the towering presence that dominates the “progressive, deliberate community” of high pines with her Saharyna, New Age philosophy. But report several layers, and in the city you can find little love and light.
Our window at the Tall Pines – Abby Academy (Sydney Fliff), tore off Stoneur from Canada, which does not live up to the expectations of his father. After she makes her way one night to meet her best friend Leila (Alivia Alin Lind), a problematic, mourning girl who is considered poor influence, Abby's parents agreed to be abducted at night and taken to the Evelyn school. Upon arrival, she deprives her of ownership and encourages to cut her fellow students for a tiny violation.
Meanwhile, policeman Alex Dampsi (played by Martin himself) and his pregnant wife Laura (Sarah Gadon) are newcomers in the city. Their house was gifted with Evelyn because Laura is a particularly beloved graduate of the Academy of High Pines. When Alex meets the escaped student, tearing the forest, absorbed in terror, he decides to investigate the school.
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The worst part is therapy, with cruelty, disguised as a way of protecting mental health
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Tall pines are full of eagerness in a small town: residents are excessively interested in an unborn child Alex and Laura; A mysterious door is mysterious on their basement wall; Laura suffers from permanent toad fungi. This is even before we get to the Academy, where former students who are now working Evelyn and are renamed after animals, lurked their breath about the transforming consequences of their time at the Academy.
But the worst part Characteristic This is therapy. The series acquires the phenomenon of an armed psychobabla, disgusting cruelty, often disguised as a way of protecting mental health, especially in adults.
Take the poor Abby, whose acts of an ordinary teenager teenagers are pathologized by her parents. Since they want her to be different, they pretend that she harms them and send her to cure her androgyna and leave friends such as Leila.
Everything at the academy is a master of a manipulator, but nothing more than Evelyn. She can turn “honesty-the best politics” into “treatment” of hot seat, where students curse peers armed with cruel “truths” until they break. “This is a way to hold yourself accountable,” says Evelyn at dinner.
IN CharacteristicBut often more stimulates to think about the show than to watch it. Unfortunately, after some star first episodes, it falls apart, ending with myrrhmarly. Nevertheless, they temporarily won me in the last minutes when the motivation of a character, who felt finely painted, was finally fantastically realized.
If you feel forced to return to your adolescence, Characteristic It is worth looking. If not, then there may be the best use of your time.
Betan also recommends …
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Tony Colllet also shines in a hereditary, another fairy tale about the injury between generations. She plays the artist Annie, whose family suffers from strange cases after the death of her mother.
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Transring 200 years of movement to cancel the family, Lewis stands for the best ways to care for children than privatized units. No need to completely buy the thesis to get something from the book.
Bethan Ackerley – assistant editor of culture in New scientistShe loves science fiction, comedy series and all terrible. Follow her on x @inkerley
