Heart: Stopped

 

By JT Thomas, edited and contributed to by Avery Heverly

Hello readers of the PSU College Democrats blog! Welcome to the first post of the 2022-23 season. I hope summer’s been treating you all well. Back by popular demand, I’m JT and I’m going to be serving as one of our two Communications Co-Chairs, at least until spring semester, at which point I’ll be dipping for Greece and living my best life during my semester abroad. As I’m sure you can tell, I’m very excited.

Today I’m going to be doing something that I’ve been wanting to do for about a month and a half now: a review of Netflix’s series Heartstopper, written and created by Alice Oseman and directed by Euros Lyn. 

I know, I know. This isn’t exactly a hot-button political topic, but a.) we’re trying to make the blog more fun this year and b.) it’s Pride, I’m queer, and I have custody of the blog this month. So there.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

Heartstopper is a TV series produced by Netflix and See-Saw Films and based on the web comic/graphic novel series of the same name by Alice Oseman. It follows the story of Charlie Spring, played by Joe Locke, a high-strung ,out, gay teenage boy, and Nick Nelson, played by Kit Connor, the (apparently) straight rugby player that he befriends and falls for. It takes place in southeast England, around Kent.

I was first introduced to Heartstopper in its comic form a few years ago, when my sister bought me the first volume as a Christmas present. I immediately fell in love, and bought the next volume for myself a few days later. Because Oseman is based in England, the physical copies of the comic come out a little later here in the US, so I moved to reading the comic online to keep up. That’s where I heard that a Netflix adaptation was in the works.

Since its release in April, the series has received massive amounts of acclaim, and rightfully so. Its first season is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with a whopping 100% critic score. Fans have taken over platforms such as Twitter and Tik Tok, catapulting the series into the mainstream and taking the Internet by storm. In a world where many queer-focused stories end up being dark and gritty tragedies, Heartstopper is a joyous celebration of queer life and love. Not only that, Heartstopper, through the raw awkwardness and tension that many face at such a young age, shares the stories of queer navigation by teenagers, something that many queer-related media pieces do not! I 100% recommend giving it a watch.

I’m no critic, but for what it’s worth, I’d give Heartstopper the series a 98/100 score. Overall, the series is as fantastic as I could’ve dreamed. Its main cast consists of mostly LGBTQIA+ characters: gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, and asexual (rumored) identities are all represented. It showcases queer and trans POC, something that is often missing from queer circles. This representation isn’t forced or cobbled together at random. It’s natural; the characters are strikingly flesh and blood.

The actual cinematography of the series is breathtaking; the lighting and camera angles are absolutely perfect. Fans have noted online that one of their new favorite games is picking out all the little rainbows that appear throughout the series. The soundtrack is amazing and unapologetically queer. So many of the songs featured have gone viral that the official Heartstopper mixtape has been released on both Spotify and Apple Music. The storyline is relevant, relatable, and entirely engrossing; you will want to binge the whole thing in one sitting.

In terms of character, Heartstopper features one of the most well-rounded ensembles I’ve seen in a long time. One thing the series does differently from the comics is that it expands on the stories of several side characters, giving them more depth and dynamism. The chemistry between the cast is immediately evident. There isn’t a single bad performance, and each actor breathes life into their role, no matter how big or small. 

*SPOILERS START HERE*

I only had two problems with Heartstopper the series. First, I wish that Charlie had the same relationship in the series with his best friend Tao (played by Will Gao) that he has in the comics. I realize that from a writing standpoint, there needed to be a bit more tension, but I felt that at times they were unnecessarily antagonistic to each other. 

Second, I didn’t like how Tao found out about Charlie and Nick. He finds out through another character, Elle (played by Yasmin Finney), that the two main characters are going out. I wouldn’t say that Elle full-on outed Charlie and Nick; they’d told the rest of Charlie’s friends, and were planning on telling Tao soon anyway. Still, they had a right to do it on their own terms, and were deprived of that.

Other than that, the series was in my amateur opinion flawless. As I said above, each individual actor did an amazing job, but if I had to pick one breakout star of the series, it would have to be Kit Connor as Nick Nelson.

Nick Nelson starts off the series as straight, but quickly comes to realize that his feelings towards his new friend Charlie aren’t just platonic in nature, and he begins to question his sexuality. In one of the trailers, there’s a sequence where Nick reaches to hold Charlie’s hand while the latter is asleep. Just before their hands touch, Nick lurches away. As soon as I saw the expression on Connor’s face, his body language and the fear in his eyes, I knew that his performance was going to be special. Boy oh boy was I right.

Realizing that you’re bisexual is hard for a lot of people. Toxic masculinity makes it especially hard for people who identify as male. I’ve been through that circus, the realization of “hey, I’m starting to look at certain guys the same way I look at certain girls.” There’s a lot of confusion, curiosity, and the fear wrapped up in that realization, and to see it depicted so accurately and viscerally in quite literally every choice that Kit Connor made was incredibly moving. I kept wanting to reach through my laptop, give him a hug and tell him that it would be alright. Thankfully, Charlie was there to do it for me. Season one was about Nick’s journey as much as it was about Charlie’s, and Connor hit it out of the park with his performance.

*SPOILERS END HERE*

All in all, Heartstopper is now easily one of my favorite TV shows of all time. Its story is light and joyous, its cast is phenomenal all around, and its production is top-notch. There’s so much representation it’s hard not to feel seen, and the show is far from done. With one season already streaming and two more on the way, Oseman and the rest of her crew have a lot more stories to tell. If you’re looking for a cute, prideful, and moving summer binge, look no further!