Stars: 2/5
“I Am Not Okay with This” is pretty much what everyone expected it would be.
When the trailer for the latest Netflix teen drama series dropped it had people talking on Twitter. People recognized its unoriginal plot and saw it as a “Carrie” rip-off.
Critics also complained about the cast lacking diversity. Since then people have continued to share their negative opinions on Twitter and the topic has even spread to Tik Tok, with people making fun of the trailer by recreating it and showcasing how easy it was for them to make another typical Netflix teen show within a couple of seconds.
I went into watching this show as open-minded as possible, but the people have spoken, and the people weren’t wrong.
Sydney Novak (Sophia Lillis) is an angsty teen girl who feels different than everyone else in her town, except for the boy who lives close to her, Stanley (Wyatt Oleff), who she likes because he’s different too. Her best friend Dina (Sofia Bryant), who starts dating the popular rude jock at school named Brad (Richard Ellis). This bothers her because her feelings for Dina are complex.
Dealing with the stress of being a teenager, the recent suicide of her father and bad relationship with her mother, Sydney struggles to have fun in high school. Chances of her being normal halt as she discovers through one of her emotional episodes that she has powers that she can’t control.
Everything about this show is typical and unsurprising. We’ve seen this storyline done so many times that I simply can’t find a reason someone did it again without making any significant additions.
A girl who feels different and actually turns out to be different but that’s OK because everyone’s different and it’s a cool thing. We’ve learned this lesson many times over the years, but I fail to see what makes this story special.
Sydney can do things like make people bleed and flip over street signs, and she worries that her powers may become too much to handle. Throughout the show, a scene is foreshadowed where Sydney is covered in blood and running away from something, hinting that her powers did become too much and things escalated.
I can’t say I expected to be surprised and when I got to the end, I wasn’t. There is a graphic scene at the end, but it still didn’t shock me concerning the storyline since it was pretty predictable with the homage to “Carrie” that something like that would happen.
What was meant to be a coming-of-age series turned out to be a just another teen Netflix show that lacked originality and excitement.
The actors did well with what was given. I enjoyed Oleff’s performance, but the script was sometimes too cringeworthy to stand. Netflix has great coming-of-age teen shows like “Sex Education,” “The End of the F***ing World,” “Stranger Things” and “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” There’s no excuse for them to produce shows of lesser quality.
I’m sure this show will have a second season. I hope it’s more creative and exciting than the first.
Rev Ranks: “I Am Not Okay with This” is another teen series Netflix didn’t need
March 2, 2020
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