paul mescal’s gorgeous blue eyes make up for a strong start from normal people
Hmm I'm not really invested in the main characters nor am I feeling the romance between the two so far but there's definetely potential there.
I don’t know what this is about, I just know Paul doesn’t look close to 16 or 18 or 20 :/
The source novel was a fast and easy read with lovely moments, but ultimately became trite and a slight disappointment for me. Still, I'm really interested in this TV version, and so far, it's showing some promise. Filmmaking wise it's shot with fairly standard coverage, but it maintains a nice unified look with shallow focus on our two main characters. The actors are pretty easily likeable too, which makes it really easy to buy into their romantic tension.
Why did they choose two actors that doesn't look like teenagers at all?
So fun fact, about me Normal People is my favourite book of all time. It lives in my soul and breathes in my lungs. So to say I was terrified of what this adaptation could do to my beloved novel was an understatement. I avoided this show for years in terror. BUT I'm happy to say this pilot has given me the comfort to unclench (a smidge).
Because what we have so far is such a pure translation of text to screen. Sure I am missing the detail of the internal monologue a tad but knew I was in safe hands once we got to Connell and Marianne's first kiss. It filled me with that same toe curling soul warming glee the book did. Now I actually can't wait to have my heart broken and reformed by the rest of the series.
Even though I was disappointed in the book by the end, having heard so much praise for it, after watching this episode I think that I'll end up quite enjoying this series.
I see people in the comments complaining about the actors not looking the character's age (first of all, I think the characters are supposed to be 18, not 16?), Paul Mescal was 23 and Daisy Edgar-Jones was 21 which is not that bad compared to some other shows and (idk if this is a spoiler) since the book ends when they're at their last year of university (so they can't be looking too young for that too).
Review by DeletedBlockedParent2020-05-02T16:25:02Z
There are so, so many disappointing literary adaptations. The reasons for this are legion, shifting imperceptibly according to one’s own tastes, opinions and prejudices. It will in part have to do with the mental image the reader creates in her head of the characters, of course, and this effect will be magnified considerably by the affection in which these characters are held. This is the dilemma I found myself in before beginning Normal People—the book and its two principals made such a deep impression on me, the plot and setting intertwining with my own life and history, that I felt absolutely sure that any attempt to adapt it would surely fall well short of what it deserved. Rooney’s style, too, relies so heavily on the inner voices of her characters, thoughts that wrap themselves around and through the spoken word, that I wasn’t even sure what an adaptation would look and sound like. Would the BBC’s house style take over attempts to innovate?
Thankfully, mercifully, most of my concerns dissipated after watching this first episode. Mescal is bigger, brawnier, more angular than I’d pictured Connell, but the two visions quickly reconciled. Edgar-Jones is equally strong in embodying Marianne, although her Mayo accent tends to slip from time-to-time. The characters’ inner monologues are left to the actors’ mannerisms, glances, body language, and remarkably it feels as if not a great deal is lost from page to screen. I was curious, too, to see how a relatively short novel could stretch to twelve episodes but it makes sense, giving the characters time to breathe. The chemistry between Connell and Marianne is evident in the halting, subdued way you’d expect from two teenagers who don’t talk. We reach, here, the start of things between them, the shift from a glance in a corridor to something more concrete. We get a sense, too, of who these characters are and what they are capable of.