Isobel Grieve

I know I’m late to the party! But hey, I’m Trying.

On August 5, 2021

Trying Review – Spoiler Warning

I’ve always been reluctant to watch shows my sister recommends, and then I’ll eventually try them and wish I’d joined the wagon sooner. My sister recommended Trying on AppleTV+ to me a while ago but I was hesitant. It sounded like something I wouldn’t relate to but recently we were trying to spend more time together before she moved, and we binged the first and second seasons.

Well… I really enjoyed it. Its rated 73% on Google, 7.7/10 on IMDB, and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Seems like I’m not the only one.

Rafe Spall plays Jason Ross, an English as a foreign language teacher who’s mocked for sticking with a job most 20-somethings only have for their gap year into his mid-30s. Esther Smith plays Nicki Newman, a happy-go-lucky car rental salesperson. Their relationship’s origin story is a little messy on Jason’s end, but they remain extremely strong together throughout both seasons.

The title, Trying, stems (mostly) from the protagonists’ journey into parenthood. After a failed IVF trial, their determination to start a family leads them to adopt. Through the first season, we follow the process of them being approved for adoption. Through the second season, we follow the process of them getting a child.

The show primarily focuses on Jason and Nicki, but they are surrounded by an entertaining, quirky support system. Their best friends, Freddy (played by Oliver Chris) and Erica (played by Ophelia Lovibond), have two children and run into marriage problems following the birth of their second. Nicki’s sister, Karen (played by Sian Brooke), has a boyfriend, Scott (played by Darren Boyd), whose flat-out unlikeable but eventually grows on you.

There are standout performances from Jason’s parents: Victor Ross (played by Phil Davis) and Sandra Ross (played by Paula Willcox). The first season presents them as very upper class and distant. The second season reveals a deeper story. Victor’s love language is acts of service; he may not be the deepest conversationalist, but he will fix everything and anything in Jason’s flat. Sandra clearly has childhood trauma from her mother who dies in the second season; her anger and grief connect her and Nicki. They bond while tearing apart an old shed and screaming. It sounds ridiculous but is very touching.

The most heartwarming character out of the bunch is Jason and Nicki’s social worker, Penny Wootton (played by Imelda Staunton). Staunton’s portrayal of this hardworking, hard-loving woman is a far cry from her notorious portrayal of Professor Umbrage in the Harry Potter franchise. She is chaotic, poised, charming, and motivating. She takes our protagonists under her wing and fights for them. It makes me well up just thinking about it.

Trying is a touching half-hour dramedy that makes you go from laughing to crying in seconds. It seems AppleTV+ knows what they are doing when funding projects like this, Ted Lasso, Dickinson and the new Schmigadoon! Apple is creating a name for itself in the realm of comedy half-hour. Surely they will be considered a must subscribe soon, if not already.

I know I talk a lot about performances, but a good tv show is more than that. The creator, Andy Wolton, impressively has a shortlist of credits for having such a successful series with a major company like Apple. The third season of Trying was greenlit two months before the second season hit the streaming platform. I think if he has anything else on the backburner that breaths like Trying, he’s headed towards a very blissful, rewarding career in half-hour.

Trying‘s colourful palette complements the warmth the characters bring to their stories that feature such deep sadness. The opening credits remind me of the early 2010s when Indie music and ukuleles were all the rage. It has an aged hipster vibe that is comforting instead of mocking. Even the rows of townhouses the protagonists live in are coloured in bright pastels and the markets they shop at feel stylized but real. The show is aesthetically pleasing as much as well written and performed. Something, I feel, is often overlooked in broadcast television.

Overall, I say go watch Trying. It is absolutely incredible.

From Little Monsters to Sea Monsters: Its all Queer Here

By Isobel Grieve

On July 8, 2021

In Movies, Reviews

If you feel in need of a good cry and can’t get it out, I highly recommend Luca. Released in Canada on Disney+ June 18th, 2021, this Pixar animated film sparked a lot of Queer TikTok discourse sparking mainstream media to take an interest as well.

The discussion circles the queer allegory that Luca’s “coming out” story element provides. Two young sea monster boys, Luca (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer), find friendship with a young land monster girl, Giulia (voiced by Emma Berman), in a small Italian land monster village. The village hunts sea monsters, which shapes the hostile environment Luca and Alberto must hide their true selves in by avoiding water on land to retain their human form. Of course, they can’t do that forever.

The queer allegory does not stop at the two boys’ experience on land, it spreads into Luca’s parents’ experiences as well. Luca’s mother (voiced by Maya Rudolph) and father (voiced by Jim Gaffigan) venture onto land searching for Luca after he runs away from sea with Alberto. Their fear is for Luca’s safety above water in the company of people who hate and hunt sea monsters like them.

The three friends prepare for a community lead triathlon whose cash prize will get the boys enough money to purchase an old Vespa they’ll travel on. While training, Luca becomes more interested in Giulia’s books and what she learns from school than travelling around with Alberto.

Once again, Luca’s eyes and ears perk up with curiosity. First, it was merely the land that he found interesting and the adventures he and Alberto went on. Now, Luca strives for more innovation and knowledge, where Alberto craves something else.

Luca’s need to get out and learn most likely stems from feeling suffocated by his protective parents, whereas Alberto’s father left him at a young age. At first glance, Alberto just wants adventure and independence as a way of proving he can go it alone. However, underneath that exterior, what he really needs is stability in companionship and perhaps routine.

From frustration seeing Luca slip away from their original dream, Alberto outs himself as a sea monster to Giulia with the intention of outing Luca too. Instead, Luca acts scared of Alberto. Heartbreaking. The animation portrays the betrayal and fear in Alberto beautifully. The waterworks started then and persisted when Giulia spritz water on Luca back at her house while confronting him for being so reckless as to come into a town that hates sea monsters.

Now we see the obstacle is not that Giulia fears Luca or Alberto, it’s that she fears for them. It’s similar for Luca’s parents, they’re terrified for Luca’s safety above water. Interestingly enough, their love for Luca does not come with a desire to change the opinion of sea monsters on land but an instinct to hide. Giulia is also all about hide and stay safe rather than fight to be accepted.

A moment bound to fruition, Alberto and Luca are exposed by the rain at the triathlon; no one can hide forever. It is not until a sea monster hunter, Giulia’s father Massimo (voiced by Marco Barricelli), recognizes Luca and Alberto in their sea monster form that the village finally accepts all sea monsters. The message: True acceptance of difference is learning there is no difference at all.

The journey reads very queer. The whole time the boys knew they were sea monsters but out of fear hide that from the world, not out of shame. The learning curve was not about accepting themselves; it was about learning who they are and what they want outside of what they already know is true. When they fully understand who they are, that’s when the world sees them for who they are, sea monsters and humans.

The other queer likeness is the sense of found family for Alberto. He’s abandoned by his father but finds Luca, a friend and brother. Then meets Giulia, a friend and sister. She introduces him to her father Massimo, a man who by the end of the film, wholeheartedly steps in as a father figure for Alberto when Giulia and Luca leave for school.

So not only is it a coming out and coming to allegory, it’s a found family story. So undeniably queer, and at that point does it really matter what the director says?

I Am Not Okay With This Being Cancelled.

By Isobel Grieve

On December 17, 2020

In Reviews, TV

Based on the graphic novel by Charles Forsman, I Am Not Okay with This is about 15-year-old Sydney Novak, “Syd” (Sophia Lillis, It [2017]), who recently lost her father to suicide and through her grief has discovered she has an emotional Psychokinesis ability.

Forsman is also the author of The End of the F***ing World which became a Netflix Original in 2017 with the second season in 2019. Christy Hall and Jonathan Entwistle (The End of the F***ing World) are credited as co-creators on this new project, Entwistle directed all seven episodes.

The tone of the two shows are quite similar, they both feature highly pessimistic central female characters and an overwhelming sense of melancholy. Sadly, The End of the F***ing World was renewed for a second season when it didn’t need one and I Am Not Okay with This has not been due to COVID-19 even though it deserves one.

The End of the F***ing World’s first season could stand alone quite successfully whereas I Am Not Okay with This leaves the viewer on the edge of their seat salivating. I want my second season, and I want it now!
Sydney’s mother, Maggie Novak (Kathleen Rose Perkins), and brother, Liam Novak (Aidan Wojtak-Hissong), both create a family environment that balances between toxic and inviting. These relationships are what tether Sydney to a familiar reality.

The adorkable Stanley Barber (Wyatt Oleff, It [2017]) becoming aware of Sydney’s abilities caters more towards a believable fantasy rather than a psychotic break. Lillis and Oleff play off each other well, establish great banter and create a believable allyship. However, Stanley’s role as a willing sidekick makes the story harder to decode.

The unravelling of Sydney’s sexuality with Dina’s (Sofia Bryant) presence is what makes this series truly great. So often we see the dorky boy get with the pessimistic girl because no one else is willing to crack her shell. Here the closeted element derails the series from following this trope while also escalating Sydney’s emotional instability to the point of bottling up so much she destroys a freaking forest. Incredible.

This is why framing I Am Not Okay with This through Sydney’s diary voice-over has me convinced she’s an unreliable narrator.

Here are a few ways I think we can read this series:

The powers represent an undiagnosed mental disorder (that her father also had) and writing about it as superpowers in her diary is a hallucination or unconscious coping mechanism.
The powers are an allegory for the suppression of grief and true self Sydney experiences throughout the series, again she’s an unreliable narrator.
We trust Sydney and say, “Sure. This very sad, complicated teenager totally has superpowers.”

All of these possibilities lure me in. I think the production has a lot to work with. The actors they’ve cast perform beautifully together. The possibilities of how to read Sydney’s abilities offer so much to unpack and play with for viewers. If Netflix is going to renew Riverdale, they should seriously consider renewing this instead.

The Duchess of Single Moms in Comedy

By Isobel Grieve

On October 2, 2020

In Reviews, TV

Katherine Ryan’s The Duchess was released on Netflix on September 11th, 2020 in Canada. It is 72% liked on Google, has a rating of 6.7% on IMDB and 63% on Rotten Tomatoes.

From what I know about Katherine’s life from her stand up specials on Netflix (i.e. Glitter Room, and In Trouble) the premise is somewhat based on the reality of her life. The show takes place in London and centres around Katherine, her 9-year-old daughter, the father, and the boyfriend. In a short series of six half-hour episodes, we’re exposed to the complexities of co-parenting, a brilliant mother-daughter rapport, and the story of dating men who just don’t get it.

Katherine Ryan plays Katherine an excellent carbon copy of herself, and her daughter (Olive) is played by the brilliant Katy Bryne who steals the scene every chance she gets. The relationship between these two characters is both adorable and heartbreaking. It reminds me a bit of Lorelai and Rory from the Gilmore Girls if Lorelai was perhaps just a smidge more responsible and more of a mother than a best friend.

Katy Bryne’s Olive takes on the “Wise Beyond Their Years” child trope and plays with it. She acts and speaks with sophistication but has no real wisdom or understanding of the real world. In fact, her innocence and playfulness are still very much intact, yet she believes she holds some kind of negotiating power and equality with her mother in their home. This kind of personality brings a lot of wholesomeness to the show, I especially enjoyed her evolution in the fifth episode when she gets a haircut.

The father Shep (Rory Keenan) and the boyfriend Evan (Steen Raskopoulos) are the central, highly contradictory, male characters. Shep is wild and obtuse, Evan is calm and supportive, and your expectations of where Katherine’s alliances lie might shock you. Katherine showcases a lot of her vulgarity through these relationships. The cavalier way she approaches sex is quite comical but off-putting in that classic British humour way.

Katherine’s feminine relationships are represented with Bev (Michelle de Swarte) the best friend and business partner, Jane (Sophie Fletcher) the daughter’s friend’s mom, and Cheryl (Doon Mackichan) Shep’s rich new wife. The dynamic between the women in this show is both uplifting and complicated. Katherine does a brilliant job at villainizing without dehumanizing her antagonists which makes her struggle all the more comical and satisfying to watch.

Katherine has constructed herself as a bit of an anti-hero who thinks she’s the absolute hero. She’s a bit of an overconfident mess and is definitely not always right. In her own way, she plays both the protagonist and the antagonist.

Although this series is quite short, I found it complete and satisfying. My sister and I binged it in an afternoon. We laughed, we cried. It takes some unexpected emotional turns when it comes to the relationship between Katherine and Olive. I think Katherine Ryan has done a great job cultivating a story that explores modern motherhood in a light, humorous, and humanist way.