The TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel has been a central topic of conversation since it arrived on our screens last Tuesday. It has gained high praise from fans of the book and, at the opposite end, has received appalled criticism from Ireland’s more conservative audience.
The first two episodes centered around Marianne and Connell’s experiences in school and emphasised their vastly different lives in the social hierarchy of their town.
The third episode in the series picks up where they left off, with Marianne getting herself ready for the Debs fundraiser. As she walks into the kitchen, the tangible confidence in her stride is immediately deflated by a cruel comment from her brother, Alan, and a coolly delivered “well, you’ve certainly gone all out” from her mother – the same snide observation that Rachel Moran later repeats in Carricklea’s only night club.
It is clear that the other students are unsure how to act around this new version of Marianne. The girls look uncomfortable, as if they don’t expect her to perform femininity the same way they do, and when Connell’s gang of friends arrive late at the fundraiser, they immediately objectify her: “That’s a nice dress, Marianne. Very sexy.” It is clear that many of her classmates view Marianne not as a person but as an object of ridicule. In school she is sneered at for being different, and when she suddenly presents herself as desirable, they act as if it is something to be scornful about, a failed attempt to assimilate with the rest of them.
Our protagonists’ secret liaisons are proving difficult to hide as the chemistry between them spills over into public life. Connell watches Marianne intently from a distance. The rest of their classmates notice. When a group of older men gatecrash and one of them gropes Marianne in front of everyone, Connell defends her publicly for the first time. While Rachel and Rob try to downplay the man’s actions, saying it was “all a bit of fun”, Connell – in an outburst that’s very out of character – rounds on Rachel: “Would you ever just fuck off?”
This unfortunately marks the very brief stint of actual respect Connell shows Marianne. Later that night, in a scene of intimacy so beautifully intense it’s heartbreaking, Connell tells Marianne he loves her. It’s a moment those of us rooting for the couple will want to live in forever – until we are painfully hauled back to the reality of teenage social norms that Rooney so perfectly encapsulates, and Abrahamson wonderfully replicates.
Connell is mocked by his friends at school for leaving with Marianne. His response to this is to ask Rachel Moran to the Debs. When he tells Marianne of his betrayal, painting it as a casual encounter, her reaction is cold but, when he leaves, she breaks down. It’s scenes like these that accentuate Edgar-Jones’s superb embodiment of the character through the subtle complexities of how she expresses her emotions. This parting is the last Connell and Marianne will see of each other until they both begin college several months later.
Episode four begins with Connell’s arrival at Trinity. Seeing Dublin onscreen, in its perpetually bustling state, and watching Connell walk through Trinity’s front gates, and through campus, is both surreal and thrilling.
Connell is worlds away from his small-town life, where popularity came easily to him. It is immediately apparent that he finds it difficult to fit in in College. He is overwhelmed by the academic rigour and is intimidated by the bold confidence of his classmates in their analyses of English literature. He, conversely, struggles to express himself.
His mother convinces him to attend a party he’s invited to by his classmate Gareth. Here he sees Marianne for the first time since she cut him off. The difference in her character is astounding. She is confident, effortlessly beautiful and surrounded by people who clearly can’t get enough of her company. There is a palpable tension in the lingering stare between them – weeks and months of unspoken apologies and explanations – until Marianne breaks the silence and reduces their acquaintance with each other to a casual level, telling her friends: “We were in school together.”
What follows is less an exchange and more a game, as both hold back their emotions. The reunion highlights the dazzling chemistry between the two leads. Their past together, and their time experienced separately, is neatly packaged up into one wry conversation. Connell, clearly jealous, tells Marianne that “your boyfriend is a Holocaust denier” in reference to a previous conversation with Gareth. Marianne, in one of the show’s funniest lines so far, tells him embarrassedly that “he’s just into free speech”.
It’s a moment those of us rooting for the couple will want to live in forever – until we are hauled back to the reality of teenage social norms
Whatever tension may exist, Marianne cannot stop herself from telling Connell: “I’ve missed you.”
The lighting in this kitchen scene between them is ambient and warm, and is a tool in indicating the ardent nature of the relationship, and marking the beginning of the emotionally turbulent journey Connell and Marianne are about to take us on as an audience.
We see brief clips of Marianne’s life in Dublin spliced together. It is a stark contrast to Connell’s disjointed and uncomfortable experience we witness at the start of the episode. She appears to be thriving – she has a circle of friends who adore her, a boyfriend who is “a campus celebrity,” as Rooney describes him in the novel, and she excels in her class discussions. She wears her happiness and popularity with no trouble. Her character in the book always expressed the feeling that her “real life was happening somewhere far away”, and here, in Dublin, it seems to have started.
At the very end of the episode, Marianne stays behind to clean up while her group of friends head out for the night. She reaches for her phone, and we cut to a clip of Connell, who has just received a phone call. It’s in subtle actions like these that it’s made clear that these two aren’t going to be able to put their past behind them as easily as they might’ve liked – and it’s a relationship that’s utterly compelling.
