Let’s consider, for a moment, popcorn. How good does popcorn smell? And that buttery taste? Or maybe you prefer a cheese-flavoured dust.
Popcorn is the ultimate bingeable snack. It feels so good when you’re shoving handfuls in your mouth, and unless it’s too salty, it’s easy to devour a whole pack in one go.
But afterwards, you’re oddly stuffed but also unsatisfied, the lack of substance washing over you with something akin to regret.
That’s Cruel Summer, a 90s-set drama that made obsessives out of millions of Americans some months back. Every episode ends on a cliffhanger or a dramatic moment, teasing you, compelling you to keep going.
The series is cleverly crafted with a central question – who’s lying? – which hooks into you and doesn’t let go. But don’t mistake Cruel Summer as a prestigious series with layers and nuances, because there’s not a whole lot going on beneath the surface.
Anything that could be subtext is immediately morphed into text. It really is just a bit of addictive fun, albeit unnecessarily convoluted addictive fun.
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The story is set across three summers in 1993, 1994 and 1995, with each episode cutting to and from the different timelines. It revolves around two teenage girls, Jeanette Turner and Kate Wallis, in a small town.
When the series starts in 1993, Jeanette (Chiara Aurelia) is an awkward outsider. She has two great friends in Vince (Allius Barnes) and Mallory (Harley Quinn Smith) but she looks on with envy at Kate (Olivia Holt), who’s beautiful and popular.
One year later, Jeannette is the one who’s at the centre of attention. Her crinkly hair is now supermodel straight, her braces gone, and her glasses traded in for contact lenses. Her best friends are the girls who were Kate’s best friends, and her boyfriend Jamie (Froy Gutierrez) is Kate’s ex.
Kate disappeared almost a year ago, but when she’s found (and her abductor killed), she can’t help but feel Jeanette has single-white-femaled her life. That’s when Kate makes a shocking accusation, that Jeanette saw her at her abductor’s home and didn’t tell anyone.
Jeanette denies it, but someone is obviously lying, and they both have strong motives for doing so.
That’s the driver of Cruel Summer, this question of who’s telling the truth, which you won’t get the answer to until the very end.
Each episode is told from either Kate or Jeanette’s perspective, so depending on who you last spent time with, your view is likely to shift. And that’s where Cruel Summer is smart, in how it plays with your loyalties to these two characters, who are both neither angels nor devils. Either one of them could be lying.
It’s ostensibly a teen drama but Cruel Summer spends enough time with the adults in the community – mostly the parents – so the series has a wider appeal than just for those with TikTok accounts.
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The other big draw is the ’90s nostalgia that’s completely baked into the show. Of course that means a soundtrack featuring Mazzy Star, Spin Doctors, Skunk Anansie and Brandy, and costume choices such as butterfly hairclips, velvet chokers, goth eye make-up and plaid shirts.
There are references to the era galore, but it’s also in the casting.
Among those playing parents or adults in the series include Michael Landes, who was Jimmy Olsen in the first season of Lois & Clark, and Nicole Bilderback, who was in Clueless, Bring It On, Can’t Hardly Wait and episodes of Buffy, Sabrina and 7th Heaven.
And Harley Quinn Smith is the daughter of filmmaker Kevin Smith, who launched his career with Clerks, one of the defining indie movies of the 1990s. Smith even has a line of dialogue in which she asks a friend if they want to watch Clerks again.
Cruel Summer will scratch an itch if what you want is to lose yourself in a compulsive, more-ish show, as long you don’t care that it’s as substantial as popcorn.
Cruel Summer is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video
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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiiQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5uZXdzLmNvbS5hdS9lbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50L3R2L3N0cmVhbWluZy9jcnVlbC1zdW1tZXItYWRkaWN0aXZlLWNvbnZvbHV0ZWQtdHYtZHJhbWEvbmV3cy1zdG9yeS8wMmJkMjg3NjVkNzMxNzFjMzcyZDVhZTEwYzdiMGE2ZNIBiQFodHRwczovL2FtcC5uZXdzLmNvbS5hdS9lbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50L3R2L3N0cmVhbWluZy9jcnVlbC1zdW1tZXItYWRkaWN0aXZlLWNvbnZvbHV0ZWQtdHYtZHJhbWEvbmV3cy1zdG9yeS8wMmJkMjg3NjVkNzMxNzFjMzcyZDVhZTEwYzdiMGE2ZA?oc=5
2021-08-06 06:42:03Z
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