In April of 2020, when we were first becoming acquainted with a new way of life, Hulu and the BBC’s Normal People was the emotional rollercoaster that united everyone together to stop crying about the pandemic and instead, cry about two horny Irish teenagers. The television phenomenon undoubtedly deserved all the praise it got, but unfortunately, the same can't be said for its successor, Conversations With Friends.

The show is again based on a novel from Sally Rooney, who has been deemed the voice of a generation, painting poignant accounts of sexuality, mental health, intimacy, and relationships in a nuanced and primal way. Conversations follows Frances (Alison Oliver), a shy, timid, and intellectual literature student, and her best friend Bobbi (Sasha Lane) in current-day Dublin. The pair is chalk and cheese: Bobbi is confident, irreverent, and confrontational, whereas Frances hides on the sidelines as much as she can but still notices everything. Frances and Bobbi dated in school but are now only friends, albeit in a highly co-dependent and intense platonic relationship.

We meet the pair just at the beginning of the summer before their final year at Trinity College Dublin. They perform spoken word poetry (only Frances writes it, though) and at one performance, they meet Melissa (Jemima Kirke), a famous and revered English writer. Bobbi is immediately besotted by Melissa, who invites them to her house for dinner where they meet Nick (Joe Alwyn), Melissa's subdued Irish actor husband. The married couple is as beautiful as they are disconnected from each other, but Frances and Nick seem to bond based on their positions as the quieter ones in their respective dynamics and so, in classic Rooney fashion, they embark on an affair of intense sex, extreme stares across rooms, and certitude that no one is going to end up happy. With Bobbi’s infatuation with Melissa added, it extends the classic love triangle to a love square — and as far as plot goes, that’s about it.

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Image via Hulu

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To look at what went wrong, it has to be said that Conversations With Friends was never a book ripe for the TV treatment. Anyone who has read both books can see that the characters, dialogue and story arcs of Normal People are a lot more palpable and ready for an adaptation. In Conversations, Rooney leaves a lot of things unsaid on the page that can’t be picked up by a screenwriter. What we get as a result is a stale, uninspired and cold series, without any of the charm or soul of Normal People. The book is ransacked for material to work with. It probably could have made for a decent 90-minute film, but a 12-episode series is far beyond what the source material was able to offer.

It's easy for a show that relies heavily on characters basically doing nothing except existing to lose itself in banality. However, when done right, the story can resonate with a wider audience and draw out the more universal truths of what it is to be human. Conversations lacks such connection with the audience. The characters are meant to feel isolated from each other, but they should never feel isolated from the audience. They are kept at arm's length which prevents any real immersion in the story, making it difficult to care about what happens to them. Conventionality, when used well, can be more poignant than a show that is a grand spectacle, but it can easily lose its way and fail to conjure up any real emotional stakes, and this is exactly the case with Conversations with Friends. It feels like at the end of the show, we’ve tried to invest ourselves into this world, but with nothing to show for it.

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Image via Hulu

For a story that puts so much focus on the characters, casting was always going to need to be immaculate. Lane as Bobbi seemed like the perfect choice given that she's played lost souls and party animals to great effect, particularly in Andrea Arnold’s American Honey. Lane plays the young experience with all the fleeting emotion but still, a grounded substantially, asking you to take her more seriously. She uses this in Bobbi, always reminding Frances (and us) that we don't really know her because we already think we have her figured out. Lane is noticeably stiff and overacting in the first few episodes, but by the end, she seems more comfortable in the role and is one of the better performances in the show. Overall, it's a decent attempt, but with Lane’s prior acting experience, more was expected.

Alwyn, everyone’s favorite boyfriend, is one of those actors that you might not take immediate notice of, but have definitely seen at least a couple of his films (The Favourite, Boy Erased). He’s never demanding your attention but always offering a sensibility even when playing horrific characters. His performance as Nick is informed, emotional without being too expressive — which is another way to sum up Rooney’s writing. The scene when he’s visiting Frances while she's sick is a notable standout, portraying shock, heartbreak, guilt, and sympathy all in one look. Alwyn excels at being the listener, able to stay still without much dialogue and still radiate a presence, much like his minor but memorable role in The Souvenir Part II. If it wasn’t all accompanied by a South Dublin accent that sounds like it hails from Buckingham Palace, then it’d be near-perfect. Fellow Irish viewers: prepare your ears.

Frances is a difficult character to decipher or empathize with, so actually having to become her was surely no easy feat, and newcomer Oliver had a lot of work to do. It pains me to criticize emerging Irish stars, but it has to be said that Oliver’s performance is plagued by a lack of understanding of the character. She’s unfeeling at times when Frances should be melting away her exterior. When Frances is meant to be nervous or giddy, she more so resembles Mr. Bean than someone falling in love. It’s a shame as Frances is the main carrier of the story, and if Oliver was able to find her grounding in the character, the show might have gained a little more structure. Oliver is sure to have more opportunities to demonstrate her acting chops in the future, but Rooney’s characters have to be inhibited rather than acted because they’re so inconspicuous, making it easy for them to disappear — and unfortunately, Oliver lets Frances slip away from her. There are so many layers to Frances; that's the whole point of her character. She only lets select people see her core, but the Frances we get in the series is ultimately one-dimensional, and as a result, we lose all sight of the character she is meant to be.

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Image via Hulu

The strongest performance comes in the shape of Kirke. Amongst a sea of broody, wallowing poets, Kirke’s Melissa is the show’s dose of reality it so desperately needs. It's unexpected, as we all know Kirke best for playing the droll and laconic Jessa in Girls. But next to the somber Nick and uncomfortable Frances, Melissa is the character we can empathize most with, and it's because of Kirke's vibrant presence. She cuts through the awkward grey matter to give us moments of rage, joy, generosity, and fallibility, making the show somewhat human. Her incisive and intuitive performance lifts the show off the ground and brings her fellow characters down to earth.

Conversations with Friends is ultimately a show that puts style over substance. Director Lenny Abrahamson’s directing is unsurprisingly sensitive; doing his best to bring the mediocre dialogue to some level of poignancy. It seems slightly reductive and cliché to refer to these stories as "pretentious," as that's the whole point, but there's no irony within these characters or their motivations that makes them totally empathetic. They're ultimately alien to us, and this results in a story completely devoid of any real heart or soul. I would say it's disappointing but there just never seemed to be any potential for a book so vacant of any real narrative to beget a 12-episode series. With a directionless script, an uninspired central performance, and frustrating pacing, Conversations with Friends fails to earn the Sally Rooney-verse another victory.

Rating: C-

Conversations With Friends premieres with all 12 episodes on May 15, exclusively on Hulu.