Genre: Romantic Drama | Coming-of-Age | Psychological Romance
Normal People (2020) is a tender, raw, and quietly devastating look at young love, desire, and the fragile threads that bind two people together through the formative years of their lives. Adapted from Sally Rooney’s acclaimed novel, this BBC and Hulu miniseries captured audiences worldwide with its intimate storytelling, nuanced performances, and unflinching honesty about how messy, exhilarating, and heartbreaking first love can be.
Set in small-town Ireland and later at Trinity College Dublin, the series follows the tangled relationship between Marianne Sheridan (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal) from their final days in secondary school into their university years. Marianne is brilliant, aloof, and an outsider at school—intellectually sharp yet painfully isolated. Connell is popular and well-liked, but shy, thoughtful, and deeply sensitive beneath the surface. An unexpected spark pulls them together, setting off years of push-and-pull as they drift apart and find each other again, always orbiting each other in ways they can’t quite define.
At its heart, Normal People is less about plot twists and more about the small moments that shape us—glances in quiet rooms, conversations at parties, the weight of words left unsaid. Rooney’s writing translates beautifully to the screen under the direction of Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald, who capture the novel’s silences and intimate confessions with stunning subtlety. The series feels almost voyeuristic in its closeness: long takes, lingering shots, and quiet scenes that let the actors breathe.
Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones are extraordinary. Mescal’s Connell is gentle yet torn apart by shame and social anxiety, a young man caught between worlds and never quite sure where he fits. Edgar-Jones brings heartbreaking vulnerability and quiet strength to Marianne—someone craving connection but terrified of being hurt. Together, they generate a chemistry so real it feels lived-in, charged with longing, regret, and the thrill of finding a person who sees you completely.
Normal People is also unflinchingly honest about sex—not just as titillation, but as a language between two people, filled with trust, insecurity, tenderness, and sometimes pain. The intimacy is handled with rare care, making it feel deeply authentic rather than performative.
What makes Normal People linger is its refusal to give easy answers. Life pulls Marianne and Connell together and apart for reasons that feel painfully true—class divides, family trauma, fear of vulnerability, bad timing. It’s bittersweet, realistic, and, ultimately, a story about how someone can mark your life forever, even if they don’t stay in it the way you once imagined.
More than just another college romance, Normal People is a quiet masterpiece of modern coming-of-age storytelling—one that captures the heartbreak of growing up, the ache of love that changes shape over time, and the truth that some people never really leave you, even if they do.
