Normal People Is the Thirsty—but Authentic—Irish Drama of Your Quarantine Dreams
The new Hulu adaption of Sally Rooney’s popular book is hot and bothered in the best way.
Photo Courtesy of Hulu
Many people are confined to their homes with various family members right now, but Hulu’s new show Normal People is not one to watch with your mom. Trust me on this. Normal People is a journey best taken alone in a dark room (and, if you’re this writer, with—ahem—a certain sexy accessory). The series, especially in the beginning, is uninhibitedly horny and would certainly make for an awkward group watch.
If you’ve read the book, all this hot-and-bothered business probably sounds familiar (author Sally Rooney writes freely and without using conventional punctuation structures, bringing the reader even closer to the action). But it’s also a deeply felt story. For the uninitiated, Normal People is the tale of two Irish teens, outsider Marianne and cool-kid Connell who, against all the odds (namely, a high school social hierarchy) fall in love and float in and out of each other’s lives into their university years. In the new adaptation starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal (both poised for breakouts), the plot is treated delicately and with great care, allowing for lots of small, quiet moments with these characters as they change, mature, break up, have sex, and make up over the years. At first, they hide their relationship from Connell’s popular friends, a group of random hot Irish people who stalk the halls of a high school that looks inexplicably like an airport terminal. Connell comes across as quite a scumbag early on, but the imperfectness of both his and Marianne’s youthful mistakes are part of what makes Normal People so real and endearing.
The sex scenes are graphic, but they’re also realistic and normal-looking—unlike so much sex in film and TV. One thing that’s unique about their dynamic depicted on screen (besides the very explicit, but never leering, sex scenes) is the camera’s attention to Connell. I’ll be the first to say it—this man is hot, if in a rugged, nontraditional sort of way—even in that gaudy chain necklace—and one sweaty scene on the soccer field caters particularly to the female gaze. And many of the moments when Marianne and Connell are in the act seem to be refreshingly focused on her pleasure, though there’s not necessarily an imbalance, either. “It’s not like this with other people,” Marianne remarks at one point. Later, when she’s involved in a not-so-healthy relationship with a domineering partner, she says of her days with Connell, “We had mutual, equally involved kind of sex.” From their very first encounter, it was clear their physical connection was natural and intense. “If you want to stop, it won’t be awkward, just say,” Connell says. Consent and an attentive partner—we love to see it.