Sucks! smells like 90s nostalgia
Netflix series tries hard to be both laugh-out-loud comedy and bittersweet look at teen life, writes James Croot.
From Happy Days to Welcome Back, Kotter, Square Pegs to Girl Meets World, teenage life has been a staple of American comedy for decades.
The latest to come out of the Hollywood locker-room is Everything Sucks! (now screening on Netflix) which, like Happy Days and The Wonder Years, looks back at high school years gone by – albeit this time with perhaps a more cynical eye Ben York Jones and Michael Mohan’s 10-part, half-hour sitcom is set in the mid-1990s in the town of Boring, Oregon.
It’s a place where tourists only come to mock its promotional billboard and the highlight of the year for young Boring High School freshman like Luke (Jahi Winston), Oliver (Elijah Stevenson) and Tyler (Quinn Liebling) is working out what school club to join. Despite an internal disagreement that the choir and weather clubs would be more popular, the trio plump for AV Club and the chance to work on the televised morning announcements.
Undeterred by witnessing a disastrous broadcast, Luke is convinced they’ve made the right choice when his eyes lock with one of the camera operators. Kate (Peyton Kennedy) is tall, dark-haired, gorgeous, suitably geeky and, amazingly to Luke, seems happy to give him the time of day.
When she agrees to meet him afterschool to work on a project together, he’s even more smitten. There’s just a few issues to overcome – he’s intimidated by her beauty and poise, she’s a sophomore, oh, and she’s the principal’s daughter. And what he doesn’t know is that she has secrets of her own.
Setting its 90’s nostalgia/pastiche stall out early (there’s discussion of how ‘‘phat’’ the ‘‘new’’ Star Wars prequels are going to be and the inevitable dissection of Alanis Morrisette’s iconic Ironic), Everything Sucks! tries very hard to be both a laugh-out-loud comedy and a bittersweet look at 90s teen life.
Surprisingly it’s the latter that works better, thanks largely to a terrific performance from Canadian actress Peyton Kennedy. She handles some challenging material with adroitness and aplomb, with one memorable key scene in the opening episode rivalling the best the American Pie movie series had to offer in terms of awkwardness. As her budding beau Luke, Winston also deserves plenty of kudos for his assured and amiable turn.
But while the occasional joke works brilliantly – the query as to ‘‘what kind of fairytale kingdom does Alanis Morrisette live in?’’, is met with a perfectly timed riposte, ‘‘Canada’’ – comedy based on resurrecting such phrases as ‘‘she’s all that and a bag of chips’’ only entertains so much. Likewise, the soundtrack, filled with choice 90s cuts from the likes of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Oasis, seems there for purely nostalgic reasons than narrative drive.
What you’re left with is a show that’s closer to Parker Lewis Can’t Lose than Freaks and Geeks, which isn’t necessarily a disaster, but it leaves you wishing its two wonderful leads had some slightly better material to work with.