I totally missed the hype around Normal People when it arrived on our screens in April 2020, during the Pandemic’s first lockdown. Looking back I’m not sure where I was at the time, it seems it was all anyone was talking about. Perhaps I was in some kind of twilight zone, unsurprisingly. And thanks to the warped passage of time over the last couple of years, it feels at once very recent and like aeons ago. In any case, this is for anyone who like me, arrived to Normal People a little late, and loved it all the more.

Normal People follows Marianne and Connell’s relationship, journeying from high school, through university and out the other side. It took me just three sittings to watch the 12 half-hour episodes, and by the end all I was able to do was sit in stupefied awe and message a friend three words, “I am ruined”. Reflecting on the story and characters afterwards turned into late night googling and review-reading to discover whether my experience matched how it had been received. Several days after watching it I was still immersed in the heady, heavy atmosphere it evoked, and the visceral sense of awakened memories and emotions of youth. The ache of nostalgia, in its every sense.

Ah the nostalgia. The story made me remember my first loves, and those seemingly insignificant things that infatuation focus-shifts into the foreground – hair, skin, a way of glancing, a piece of jewellery… they become so meaningful. This can only be how Connell’s chain got its own Instagram account. We all know the significance of those small things, as did the directors – evidently, who highlighted them beautifully. I remembered that same stomach-lurching frustration I saw in the characters. Being unable to either communicate or comprehend yourself – let alone your attraction for someone, and their’s for you. The pain of youthful insecurity came flooding back, like looking at old photographs of your teenage years. Along with a wave of regret for opportunities both missed and unseen. This was scripted hindsight – exploring and understanding afresh what it is to grow up and know who you are; shot through with its unmistakable vulnerability.

This was particularly well observed in Connell’s wrestled journey – from barely knowing what he thinks or wants in school, to making significant choices and beginning to find his voice at university – learning to formulate his thoughts and articulate them. And then to own and develop ideas, expressing them evermore confidently. He travels through two juxtaposing contexts: at school he easily wears the persona handed to him of the cool, easygoing, affable guy who everyone likes. He appears to fit in so effortlessly, is popular and draws people to him like a magnet – he has a self-effacing charm. Meanwhile Marianne is an outsider, so accustomed to not fitting in that she even despises the idea, and refuses to compromise herself, transforming it into her armour. Her eye is still drawn to Connell, for all the reasons he’s so likeable, and yet she also sees who he really is, that he is shy and creative, and she accepts him for it. 

Moving to Dublin for university, it is Connell who arrives at Trinity College as the outsider. There is a struggle to reconcile the role he’s played at school, with its easy advantages, with the bigger reality of where he is and who he is becoming. It is Marianne who fits in here, contrasting so strongly with Connell as they seemingly swap places. In Dublin, she exchanges her small town isolation and awkwardness for a new confidence and ease, it is here that she belongs. There is an ever-changing dance between the two characters through their contrasts of light and dark, a stark yet fluid chiaroscuro. Never quite belonging in the same world as each other, but nonetheless sharing similar experiences. This provides a foundation for the empathy and understanding at the heart of their relationship. Despite Marianne’s own dark troubles, she acts as a perfect foil for Connell, believing in him and coaching him towards self-actualisation. And Connell’s need for Marianne, his sense of tortured concern for her wellbeing is ultimately what pushes her towards self-acceptance and wholeness.

A lot has been said about the sex in Normal People. How true to life, how honest it is. No secret has been made of how key having an intimacy coach was to this. Despite this and maybe because of it, the sex itself was not the focus. Instead, the way it was portrayed allowed Connell and Marianne’s sexual relationship to become a vital storytelling device, and a vehicle to communicate the intricacies of their characters, emotions and connection, as well as essential components such as consent. The characters spoke to the audience through these moments of intimate choreography, and in so doing it formed an integral part of the story rather than an entertaining flourish.

In the end, the tragedy of Normal People is also it’s hopeful resolution. The goodness in Marianne and Connell’s relationship is the very thing that will break them up, and possibly separate them forever. It will launch them into their futures, to follow two very different paths, and we never quite know if they will converge again. Resolution for these characters is suitably contrasted; for Marianne it is to stay where she once wanted to escape from, for Connell it is to leave and break new ground. It’s a familiar theme – it reminds me particularly of La La Land, where there is the same bittersweet acknowledgment between the main characters that despite their love for each other they must part ways. One must follow her dream which has finally come knocking, and one must follow his which he has finally yielded to, meaning they must separate and cannot continue on the same path together.

This serves to illustrate the important part people can play in our lives, accompanying us on our journeys for a while and contributing to futures they may not necessarily be in, but nonetheless helped shape, and vice versa. The seasonality of such relationships and friendships, even the good ones, can be painful but also joyous as we release each other to become the people we always knew we could be.

© Alexandra Noel – All rights reserved. 13th May 2022.