NORMAL... OR A MASTERPIECE?
SET IN the fictional Sligo town of Carricklea, it’s become the unlikely global hit of lockdown. Based on the book by Sally Rooney and directed by Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald, Normal People is being feted by critics and viewers alike.
It tells the story of Marianne Sheridan (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal), who meet and begin a relationship at school that he insists must be kept secret. He’s the school’s star GAA player, she’s the oddball outsider and he’s afraid it will ruin his reputation if people find out.
The story follows them as they go to Trinity and beyond, trying to figure out exactly what they both want from the relationship.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Chris O’Dowd, admit they are fans and with James Corden saying ‘I honestly think it may have changed my life’, there’s no end to the gushing tributes.
The very explicit and intimate sex scenes have also stirred controversy, with Liveline being inundated with comments after one particular episode.
But there’s a growing cohort of people saying they find it interminably boring and it left them unmoved. So which is it? Here, two writers argue their side...
YES JESS O’SULLIVAN
Glancing at Twitter during the weekly airing of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, it’s clear that there is a sort of national catharsis going on in homes all over the country.
Yes, we can flippantly say it’s the TV sensation of 2020, but I don’t think we should underestimate its value.
Alongside the outpouring of affection to Marianne and Connell, on a level that even the staunchest Wuthering Heights devotees would struggle to match, there is a whole lot of public sharing. A sharing of memories, of firsts, of formative teenage experiences and of similar traumas inflicted while navigating those difficult years of early adulthood.
Everything is so recognisable, from the Debs drama to the CAO form dilemma, that we can all see a little bit of our younger selves in Marianne and Connell. Nobody looked good in a school uniform no matter what Britney Spears would have us believe.
But how do you sum up the seamless way in which Sally Rooney weaves all the angst and adoration, betrayal and loyalty of two lovers’ relationship over five years? For me, it’s a one-worded answer: empathy.
Sally Rooney is a hugely empathetic writer. It’s her superpower as a storyteller and it was obvious when she published her debut novel Conversations With Friends. She proved that this ability wasn’t a once-off with Normal People.
Rooney invites you on a journey with the characters, with one important caveat — thou shalt not judge. And if you do find yourself pontificating from any kind of personal pulpit about the characters flaws, at the very end of that Rooney journey you will at least understand why they do the things they do. If you can do that, then just maybe it’s something we can apply to the world around us.
Marianne and Connell aren’t perfect, that much is obvious. They hurt themselves, each other and others, but we never hate them. Instead we sit at home and cry with frustration when feelings go unsaid or words are misunderstood.
In episode seven, the line ‘I suppose we should see other people’ is expertly shown from both perspectives by Lenny Abrahamson with a second take of the scene. The first sees Connell desperately wanting Marianne to say no and the second shows Marianne devastated as she thinks Connell wants to break up with her. Both of them have experienced the exact same interaction through the lens of their own insecurities.
The thing about empathy is that sometimes it’s innate and sometimes it’s learned. Many of us come to it quite late in life, meaning that before it does, insecurities can colour and cloud our experiences.
How many people leave their twenties and realise that they spent far too many years being too hard on themselves and other people? If we’re very lucky, life experience gives us a different lens through which to look at the world around us.
Yes, it takes an achingly long time for Marianne and Connell to find that lens, but if Rooney wrote it any other way it wouldn’t ring true. If these star-crossed lovers arrived to us fully formed, we just wouldn’t love them as much. Because who can relate to that?
The true beauty of watching Normal People is that you get to watch Marianne and Connell learn to be kinder to themselves, and in turn kinder to each other. I think that is what gives it its hold over its audience. It invites the reader and the viewer to be kind to Marianne and Connell, and in turn, kinder to themselves. With any luck then, that kindness is turned outwards.
As we know, empathy and kindness have never been more important than they are today. They’re at the very heart of our conversations around mental health issues and how to tackle them. Awareness campaigns ask us to walk in someone else’s shoes.
Regardless of whatever perfection people project on social media, we know that once you pull back that veil, the reality is very different. Anxiety disorders are on the rise, but thankfully more people are actively sharing their demons.
I think that is an important factor in why people have gravitated towards Connell. Okay, he’s easy on the eye, and we’ve been fed the ‘quirky girl fixes broken boy’ narrative a thousand times over in film and TV so we get some enjoyment from that.
But touting that as the only reason is extraordinarily reductive. Seeing the machinations of his inner life has started new and necessary conversations about men’s mental health and how we can support them.
In many ways for an Irish audience, his struggle with depression and anxiety is an important one. In 2018, figures showed that 352 people died by suicide in Ireland. Of these, 282 were men and 70 were women so the numbers are skewed, and we know why. Men don’t talk as much as they need to. But work is being done and numbers are falling. Last year the rate of death by suicide was the lowest recorded in the last 20 years. The green shoots of hope are starting to show.
If you ask me it was a small stroke of genius for director Lenny Abrahamson to cast Paul Mescal, an unknown actor in the part. It was a gamble that paid off because as a result Connell can be a blank slate for all of us. We can all project our own struggles on to him.
And what a time to gift Connell and Marianne to the masses. Could there be a better time for an emotional detox than now, when we are all required to be still? A weekly dose of Normal People is exactly what we need right now.
NO LINDA MAHER
I’m a sucker for hype. The minute a film or TV show starts trending on Twitter, it’s immediately added to my list.
Since lockdown began, I’ve been open-mouthed at Tiger King, thrilled by The Last Dance, moved by The Pharmacist and gripped by Gangs of
‘We can all see a bit of our younger selves‘ ‘What a time to gift Connell and Marianne to us’