I May Destroy You
B OX S E T
The latest series from the hugely talented Michaela Coel – she wrote the script, stars in and directs some of the episodes – could well be the drama of the year.
Coel plays Arabella, a cool young Londoner who has written a bestselling book – Chronicles of a Fed-Up Millennial
– based on her popular Twitter account. She is working on the follow-up but struggling to deliver the first draft and with the deadline looming, she succumbs to pressure from friends to go out drinking and clubbing. The next morning she has only a hazy recollection of events until the realisation slowly, horrifically dawns that her drink was spiked and she has been the victim of a sexual assault.
Be warned, the narrative goes into very dark places at times and in terms of content it pulls no punches in its depiction of the drug, alcohol and sexfuelled world that these contemporary young Londoners are navigating on a daily basis. Their online lives are as significant to them as their actual interactions in the real world. With the lines so often blurred for everyone, it is sometimes hard to separate truth from fiction, fact from airbrushed fabrication.
It’s about consent, friendship, trust responsibility towards ourselves and others. The toxicity of social media is explored as is the frenetic online dating world where everyone is scrutinised, judged and commodified. The theme of exploitation in various forms also comes up. This is such a rich, enthralling and thrilling exploration of modern life and the way it is lived by the young and it works on so many levels, including as a powerfully authentic document, to be studied by social historians of the future.