Must Watch reviews Conversations with Friends
Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.
This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan review Conversations with Friends.
BBC Three takes on another adaptation of a Sally Rooney novel following the success of Normal People.
Hayley says: "Watchable but not as good as Normal People"
"I’m going to admit something shocking and say I'm not really a fan of Sally Rooney. I’ve tried but never really got far through the books so I'm coming at this show from the perspective of someone who hasn't read them.
(A side point: I would like to know if in the middle of every Sally Rooney book the young university student goes on holiday somewhere hot and they have an awkward group dinner by a pool because that’s happened in both Conversations With Friends and Normal People)
"I thought this was watchable but not as good as Normal People – the TV show – which I really liked. There are incredibly pained silences and meaningful looks, but it’s very, very slow and when everyone is silent and everything is meaningful it starts to become monotonous. I don’t think the central relationship (which is the secret affair between the almost silent man and the almost silent girl) works as well here as it did in Normal People. I don’t see what either of them sees in the other one, other than the fact that they’re both more awkward than the other people around them.
"It’s not the same sort of heartbreaking, addictive thing that Normal People was. Viewers will inevitably come to this show ready to compare it to Normal People, and I don't think it's as good."
Scott says: "By forgetting the other, I enjoyed this one a lot more"
"You have to forget about Normal People to enjoy it. Let Normal People be Normal People and let Conversations with Friends be Conversations with Friends' They’re different books, they cover different topics, they are shot and filmed the same, but I found whilst watching this that if I forgot about Normal People in terms of the energy there was very different, the chemistry there was very different, this toils with a different ethical dilemma, a different set of relationships, a different set of friends. By forgetting the other, I enjoyed this one a lot more.
"I also enjoyed it by really embracing the 30-minute chapters. They’ve done the same thing again as they did with Normal People where its 30-minute chunks. In a way, with some of the pacing being quite slow – I like that more, if I had to drag through a whole hour with every episode to have six I would have just gone 'eugh.' But because every 30 minutes is a little bit of a divide I liked that. I think this is a show that you really get into if you just treat it like reading a book a chapter at a time."
Conversations with Friends is available now on BBC iPlayer.
Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds and all other good podcast providers.
This week, the team also review Floodlights and The Terror: Infamy on BBC Two and The Essex Serpent on Apple TV+.
