THE NOTICE
It could have been just another series of high school years, his galleys and his initiations. Euphoria, latest creation of the American channel HBO, proposed in France by OCS platform, is however much more than that. On the form first, since it has a young director with a personal touch and quickly manages to create an atmosphere and an original aesthetic. Basically then, going well beyond mere identification to address a generation older than his characters.
A series on adolescence ...
The pitch is simple and promises a reasonable trash dose for an HBO production: at age 17, Rue Bennett is about to go back to school, after a summer in a rehab center. A few months cut off from the world and temptations that do not dissuade her absolutely not to hand over and the language on illegal substances. She meets Jules Vaughn, transsexual young woman, and quickly befriends her. While around this duo evolve almost all the stereotypes of the comedy high school, the quarterback handsome as a God to the hottie popular passing by the girl in her skin and the intellectual shy.
" It's 2019. And unless you're an Amish, nudity is the motto of love. "The tone will be given from the first episode, out of the ten that counts this first season. There will be drugs, sex, glitter and excess, in short, adolescence. Of course, the identification process can be full. We will also trust the youngest to override the ban under 16, both justified (it is raw and violent) and excellent marketing argument.
... which is for adults
But where Euphoria is interesting is in the way she has to look to the older ones. Those who are quick to judge the next generation and its addictions to smartphones, young people and their deleterious behavior. This is the character of Rue, who also speaks in voiceover, who is responsible for challenging these moralizers in the first episode: "I'll tell you what is the biggest shit in the world. someone naked is on the Internet, there is always someone to say, 'you just did not have to take these pictures.' I know that our parents' generation relied on flowers and parents' permission, but it's 2019. And unless you're an Amish, nudity is the motto of love. "
Finally, what the show's director, Sam Levinson, shows is that teens are just adapting and trying to survive a time and a society they have not chosen. Epoch and society raw, violent and deeply misogynous, cumbersome legacy of their elders. Between an alcoholic mother, a toxic father and another violent and sexually disturbed, adults have, with few exceptions, not at all the beautiful role in Euphoria.
When children will grow up
This tension between the two potential targets of the series, the teenagers and their parents, continues until the casting. The name of the star of Euphoria, the actress Zendaya, will probably say nothing to adults. The youngest will recognize the Disney star of the Shake it Up and Agent KC series Like Vanessa Hudgens or Selena Gomez before her, Zendaya is changing from a children's franchise to a trashy production (Hudgens and Gomez had chose the Harmony Korine Spring Breakers to do the same). We will see the emancipation of a star, of course, but also a new signal sent to parents: yes, your children, like their idols, leave the cotton world forged by Disney, grow up and lose their innocence. And no, they do not damage themselves.
Sam Levinson loves his characters, most of them female. Euphoria illustrates the innumerable obstacles that oppose these girls to build themselves out of male desires, to learn to love themselves and dispose of their body as they see fit. There is a clear continuity in the work of the director, to whom we owe the film Assassination Nation (2018), which already showed how women can arm themselves (in the literal sense of the term in the feature film) to survive a society oozing toxic virility. If he sometimes falls into mannerism, the son of Barry Levinson at least has the merit of printing his leg on a series, at a time when some do not bother with any aesthetic ambition.
Produced by Canadian rapper Drake, Euphoria listens to herself almost as much as she looks at herself. His engraved soundtrack, too, will bring together all generations. Declaration of love to hip-hop, it leaves a large place to rap and electro. Until the sound of a scene resonate the well-known accordions of a standard soul 1968 ("Fly me to the moon" version Bobby Womack) or a classic of the American variety ("Can 't get used to losing you, by Andy Williams). The mixture is tasty, the message goes again: it would be a shame to put away Euphoria only in the category of series for teens.