Actually good teen reveals may be onerous to return by. Most often, even one of the best ones ask us to droop our disbelief and settle for {that a} bunch of individuals effectively into their twenties are working round worrying about homework and crushes and what faculty they’ll get into. Which, actually, we’re all blissful to do within the identify of leisure. However generally you are on the lookout for one thing a bit extra, dare I say, genuine. A part of the enjoyment of Netflix’s Never Have I Ever was that its younger lead, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, was really, you already know, younger! And if that is one thing you are looking for in your teen TV, enable me to introduce you to We Are Who We Are.
Set on an American navy base in Italy in 2016, the HBO drama follows a gaggle of teenagers who’ve been thrown collectively by their distinctive circumstances. On the middle of all of it are Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer), the brand new child on the base whose mom (Chloë Sevingy) simply so occurs to be the overall, and Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamón), whose father (Kid Cudi) is of a decrease rank. It reveals the ins and outs of rising up in America however not really in America, of the wrestle to determine who you might be in a neighborhood constructed on uniformity. Co-created, co-written, and directed by Call Me By Your Name‘s Luca Guadagnino, who’s turning into a grasp of the coming-of-age story, We Are Who We Are is a moody, atmospheric expertise. It is Riverdale by the use of A24.
End your browsing nightmare with TV Guide’s recommendations for every mood
If that appears like an insult to both We Are Who We Are or Riverdale, it isn’t meant to be. The reveals share a ardour for prime drama, quirky characters, and younger romance, besides when the teenagers in We Are Who We Are uncomfortably make out, they really are teenagers. (No disrespect to Lili Reinhart, Cole Sprouse, or anybody else within the forged of Riverdale.) It will even be foolish to not point out the DNA it shares with Euphoria, one other HBO teen drama — and although each collection function children who abuse substances and yell at their mother and father, We Are Who We Are has one thing to say that’s wholly its personal.
It desires to take you again. It is the type of present that wishes you to recollect the agony of your first break-up, your first interval, the all-consuming damage you felt when your greatest buddy discovered a brand new greatest buddy. It desires you to recollect how, in one of the best moments of your adolescence, you had been on high of the world, and generally all it took to get you there was sharing the opposite finish of a headphone twine along with your pal. It desires you to recollect these vicious fights along with your mother and father that felt monumental, the way it felt to be younger and so
misunderstood, to wish to stand out and for nobody to have a look at you once more at the very same time.
Jordan Kristine Seamón and Jack Dylan Grazer, We Are Who We Are
It helps that We Are Who We Are‘s protagonists are the Platonic preferrred of juvenile protagonists. Grazer, whom it’s possible you’ll know from the It motion pictures (or when he graduated from the Timothée Chalamet faculty of appearing with honors — watch the best way he paces round whereas repeating his strains within the opening moments of the primary episode, and you will see what I imply), brings the type of assured awkwardness that would solely be current in an precise teenage boy (Grazer is 17, whereas the character is 14). And when he vacillates between self-assuredness and defensive anger, you consider he really is aware of how that emotional whiplash feels. As Caitlin, Seamón is quiet and observant as she begins to find her personal id by gender expression, caught between what she desires to discover and what the very small world she exists in expects of her. She desires to impress and bond together with her dad whereas additionally understanding that there is one thing about her that goes past what he can perceive.
It is heavy stuff, however it feels actual, and within the moments through which Fraser and Caitlin join, speaking about every thing from first kisses to snacks to the which means of gender (or lack thereof — if what you are on the lookout for is a present that makes a robust case for gender being a social assemble, look no additional), so does their friendship. “There is a f—ing revolution happening inside you,” Fraser tells Caitlin in a single episode, which sounds just like the type of dramatic factor I, too, would’ve mentioned in my youth, and in addition like the entire level of the present. There is a revolution happening inside all of the characters; a few of them select to reply to it whereas others cover from it. We Are Who We Are does not choose them both approach.
Might you dismiss We Are Who We Are as bizarre, arty nonsense? Positive. Is it the type of present that is going to present you every thing up entrance or let plotlines simmer below the floor? Undoubtedly the latter. Will you stroll away from episodes with extra questions than you got here with? Most likely. However that is all a part of what makes it hella tight, within the phrases of an aforementioned teen icon. So let your self obsess over We Are Who We Are, as a result of it is the type of present your teen self would’ve felt seen by, and it is best to honor that child each likelihood you get.
We Are Who We Are premieres Monday, Sept. 14 at 10/9c on HBO.