Normal People on BBC3

[Bouledeneige]

Binge watched it yesterday and loved it. Emotional, passionate and two really great leads. Thoroughly recommend it (so long as you don't mind lots of love scenes). Cried lie and felt bereft when it finished.

I actually thought she was patiently giving him the opportunity to come out with it himself rather than disempowering him. Or even hoping he had enough strength of feeling for her to say something without the need for coaxing, or she was shitting herself that he was going to reveal something upsetting like, I’m taking another girl who’s bullied you incessantly to the prom for example and was delaying the pain. I thought she looked quite uncomfortable!

I know the expectation is that you should be having the time off your life at that age but who actually manages that? Surely that expectation is one of the reasons young people often struggle with the reality of adolescence? I know i was miserable and confused or suffering from a degree of feeling that life was happening elsewhere regularly. I was very bookish and solipsistic though... Ended up at art school full of similar awkward youth!

I had a great time at uni and later travelling having different flings. Got involved in an intense relationship like that when travelling where we were in love and then he changed his mind on off and it really took the shine off everything for a long time, the usual heartbreak reaction. He breaks her heart over and over again. I don’t mean you’re always happy at that age, I meant it’s not this beautiful love story because she’s actually very unhappy for a lot of it.

I get your point but I don't think she looks worried in that scene. I actually think the writer does a fair job of making both of them responsible for the outcomes to a degree, with Connel being generally slightly more clueless... I guess my sympathies are inevitably slightly inclined to Connel because i am a parent to three young men, teens to early twenties and its a long time since i was Mariannes age... I do like to think i do my best to be like Lorraine and help my boys see things from young women's point of view though, on the rare occasions they confide in me..

I have two DSs 18 and 21. We have been over the consent thing many times in different conversations. After watching this I think I need to give them the ‘FFS communicate’ talk now.

It's a love story but not a beautiful love story that's for sure, I don't think most people are describing it as beautiful though, maybe beautifully filmed and acted but not a beautiful story, compelling yes.
We all seem to be watching it with two sets of eyes, analysing the story, characters and direction with one set and watching through our own experiences with the other. Not unusual really but it's leading to a lot of varied and interesting reactions, maybe it's all enhanced as an experience by lockdown?

@Sparklingbrook exactly, mine are 16,19 and 21. I need to make sure they realise all girls are not mind readers like me, that took a lot of persistance and practice...

I hear what you’re saying but I don’t agree it’s even. From the outset she agrees to pretend nothings happening and all along she takes what she can get in between him leaving her for different reasons. She never breaks it off with him. Plus he only really gets interested in her when she looks like she’s moved on. My only criticism of her is that she has no pride but that’s to be expected when you’ve had an upbringing without love and your first relationship is one where you’re someone’s embarrassing secret. She believes she’s unloveable.
I have a ds but he’s gay but if he treated anyone like that I’d be horrified.

I should probably say empathise with Connel rather than sympathise, as i definitely judge him. I think Paul Mescals acting helps this as book Connel doesn't affect me as much.
Saying they are equally responsible for the outcomes does not mean that i think they are both morally equal, just that their actions and decisions both lead to the outcome of the story, Connels weakness is cowardice, Marianne is not cowardly in the same way but she is also willing to be friends with people who are a bit dubious rather than be alone, just at uni rather than school. This is elaborated in the book.
Connel doesn't really break things off with Marianne either, he is of course a bit thick not to realise that taking Rachel to the Debs "as a friend, doesn't mean anything" would feel like a break up to M. Don't you think his decision making is adversely affected by his anxiety?

Can you not go to the Debs (is that prom) on your own? Or is that not the done thing?

Don’t think I know anyone that went on their own Sparkling. I didn’t want to go so my boyfriend ended up not going either! In my group though people paired up as friends, as we were in two different schools, so some of the girls in my class took some of the boys from the other school just so the whole gang could go along. Wasn’t necessarily romantic just functional!

Ah ok. Both my DSs went alone to prom (England) alone because they didn’t have a GF at the time. Those that had a GF took them. But only people from that school could attend you couldn’t take someone from another.

I am old so no prom for me.

Wbeezer I am more working class than Connell and went to Trinity and there were very few of us - I believe at the time (twenty years ago) the statistic was 3% of students were from a ‘disadvantaged’ background. I did a masters in trinity about 20 years later and there was definitely more ‘working class’ accents about the place and I believe the statistic had grown to 10%. But there was also a number of initiatives in trinity at that time such as the trinity access programme which gave students a non traditional gateway to TCD i.e not based on leaving cert results etc

Not sure that means social mobility is more usual as people like me and Connell still face barriers that more well off students don’t both during and after university. Also I think normal people makes it look like Connell is the only not super rich person compared to Marianne’s mates but in reality there are plenty of people at trinity from ‘average’ Families. Nearly all my friends were

*did a masters 10 years later that should say.

I’m also old Sparkling my debs was 24 years ago

It's fascinating reading all the different reactions that this programme and these characters have provoked!
Connell is undoubtedly flawed however I don't agree that he only got interested in Marianne when it looked like she was moving on. I think this is shown well in the series around the time of the dance. He seemed full of remorse and I felt that he realised then how much he cared for her. Or maybe 'moving on' for some would be from when she left school, I don't count her moving on until she's in Dublin really. I think when she left school she wasn't at the moving on stage, she just couldn't cope.

I don’t know if I am sad that I didn’t have an intense complicated all consuming relationship like C&M (taking away all the toxic family stuff)in my youth or grateful I didn’t now.
I read like a book though and I don’t do mysterious or anything i am too impatient.

Those that have read the book what did you think of the casting? Are they like you imagined? I still can’t see her being attracted to TV Jamie, I haven’t read the book but if I do the characters already have faces now.

Oh yes there’s no doubt he’s desperately insecure about his position with his friends at school and later at uni. I was confused as to why at school he was so worried about his image when he was clearly top dog in the group. What was he actually scared of? And if he was so well read, could he not see how what he was doing at school was so immoral? And at the debs I think his regret came when he realised plain Susan had actually gained interest and approval from the others, particularly the men when she put some makeup on and became sexually attractive to others. Text book really.
Then he finds out they all knew anyway and they were protecting his feelings by not saying anything. He only breaks down when he thinks he’s lost her.

Saying they are equally responsible for the outcomes does not mean that i think they are both morally equal, just that their actions and decisions both lead to the outcome of the story

I agree with this. I think one of the great strengths in the writing is that there is no judgement on either character and that they both make mistakes at each stage.

In the book it is shown that Marianne enjoys the secrecy of their relationship at the start. She isn’t thinking beyond having sex with a boy she fancies. Of course it all changes once they fall in love, but then how do you change the dynamic?

You can think Connell is a bit thick not to realise about the Debs, but then you have them talking on the beach about how stupid the Debs is. It is not important to him, so he convinces himself she won’t care. I think a lot of men have a tendency to do this.

The bits of the story that really get to me are when they realise their mistakes. As it dawns on Connell that he has thrown away his relationship with Marianne, someone who he loves and who gets him, for nothing. Marianne too when she realises that their break up over the Summer wasn’t just down to Connell and had as much to do with her assumptions as anything else. I don’t think it is explicit in the book or series, but I can imagine her not responding to any calls from Connell and then of course she starts a relationship with Jamie within two weeks!

In my view, I don't think his regret only came at the dance when he realised Marianne had gained a kind of approval after she put make up on.
I think discovering that his mates didn't really care just topped off his feelings of regret. I like to think he did care about her but had been in denial about this for long enough and I definitely agree with the accusations of cowardice.

I definitely think he loved her and cared about her but in a very selfish way. All his angst makes him very selfish.

Fascinating discussions!
I think Connell really regretted going to the debs and how superficial all the interactions there were compared to what he had with Marianne but I think he was, perhaps unconsciously, totally bound up in keeping up appearances socially - he was poor, his mother was a single mother who had him at 17 and was a cleaner in the 'big house' - he had greater odds to overcome and had found a 'place' with the 'cool sports gang' but he knew he didn't really fit that role completely.

His relationship with Marianne and her (on the surface) containment and self confidence was a revelation to him (he who worried so much about what others think) coupled with her intelligence and the abstract conversations they could have - she saw the 'real him' in his mind and could see the inner him enough to casually suggest that he should read English Lit at TCD. This was something he admitted he had never considered and with his background it was a leap.

I think Marianne, from her place of financial privilege failed to see how hard things were for him and how disadvantaged he was even in TCD.

I don't think it is a beautiful love story but a very well observed, nuanced one between two realistic characters and that's what makes it so compelling.

Many of us who grew up in small towns will recognise so much in this

Did anyone feel sorry for the girl he brought to the Debs ( I know she wasn't nice to Marianne ) and just left there. He walked off. She must have been devastated. II thought that was horrible. So selfish.

No I didn't feel sorry for her at all. I'd say she barely noticed he was gone by that stage of the night - was she the girl he dated for that summer then before Trinity?

The scene of him snogging the girl after the nightclub back in his hometown was tough to watch too - you could just see how uncomfortable he was, even drunk. And that girl was so eager to be with him