When Normal People, Hulu’s limited series based on Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel of the same name, debuted in April of 2020, it took the world by storm and went on to quickly achieve widespread acclaim. Based on Normal People’s burst of success, it was inevitable that Rooney’s sweeping debut novel would receive the adaptation treatment soon enough. Now here we are, two years later and still in a pandemic, and Conversations with Friends has finally arrived.
Set in Rooney’s home country of Ireland, Conversations with Friends centers on 21-year-old university student and writer Frances (Alison Oliver) and her ex-girlfriend-turned-best friend Bobbi (Sasha Lane). At a spoken word event, their performance catches the attention of Melissa (Jemima Kirke), an accomplished writer in her 30s. She and her emotionally fragile and relatively known actor husband, Nick (Joe Alwyn), immediately become friends with the pair, inviting them to birthday parties and on vacation in Croatia. Whereas Bobbi is quickly enamored with and is open about her attraction towards the magnetic Melissa, Frances gravitates towards the more reserved Nick. Soon after they meet for the first time, there’s a clear spark, and it doesn’t take them long to act on their feelings for each other despite the hesitance and his status as a married man.
What ensues throughout the rest of the series is a tangled dynamic between the tight-knit quartet. The various relationships prove to be challenging, with Nick and Frances embarking on an intense affair that they initially keep hidden from Bobbi and Melissa. Frances’ secrets cause a rift between her and Bobbi, whom she begins to alienate as she becomes consumed with Nick’s presence in her life. While their relationship had ended years prior, Bobbi and Frances still have strong feelings for each other that go far beyond the platonic, and it’s clear that those emotions will remain with them forever. Despite the way that he feels towards Frances, Nick still loves Melissa and makes that clear to Frances, who still holds a sliver of hope that he will end up choosing to be with her exclusively in the future.
It’s always difficult to develop follow-ups to wildly popular shows that meet our expectations, even more so when said follow-up is based on an equally beloved novel. Conversations with Friends certainly lives up to the high standards while also doing justice to Rooney’s blunt yet deeply moving writing. Helmed by the same creative team that brought Normal People to life, including director Lenny Abrahamson and writer Alice Birch, Conversations shares the same DNA as Normal People on the surface but manages to invite us into something that is entirely new and special. It’s an understated and intimate character study that paints a realistic portrait of what happens when a young person gets thrust into the harsh realities of adulthood and must deal with their aftermaths. Like those in Normal People, the characters in Conversations feel real and fully true to life — they make mistakes, miscommunicate, and are sometimes self-absorbed just like the rest of us, even if they don’t like to admit it. It would be easy to write the story off as simply being about cheating, but it’s a narrative centered on identity and love that avoids falling into stereotypes.
Conversations remains largely faithful to its source material, barely straying away from the world created in the novel. There are some details that have been altered, such as making Bobbi a Black American who moved to Ireland at a young age, and a change in time period, with the novel having originally been set in 2008 but the series taking place over a decade later. Texting and emails play a vital role in Rooney’s works as one of the main ways we get to know the characters, and Conversations seamlessly blends them into the series without overwhelming us with flashy text bubbles or an excessive amount that pulls us entirely out of the story.
As much as the series cares about focusing on the core relationships that drive the narrative forward, it equally devotes time to the personal journey of Frances as she deals with the highs and lows of navigating adulthood at an age where everything is uncertain. From her strained relationship with her alcoholic father to an unknown abdominal pain that ultimately sends her to the hospital to even her writing, every aspect of Frances’ life directly has an impact on the connections she has with the people who exist in her orbit, causing her to keep secrets from her mother, lover, and closest friends. With the story unfolding from Frances’ point of view and never venturing far beyond her experiences, it’s understandable that any other characters — particularly Bobbi and Melissa, whose relationship remains largely in the background and is never explicitly shown — who are seen from her perspective are not as developed. However, adapting the book was a chance to give these key players a larger presence in the series.
The adaptation would always live or die by the casting, especially of its lead. Amongst a cast of established actors, Oliver, perfectly cast in her on-screen debut, holds her own and shines as the show’s star. She imbues the somewhat self-destructive Frances with depth, making her a sympathetic yet flawed character to whom we can all relate in some instances. Witnessing her on screen, it’s immediately apparent that she will be catapulted into stardom just as Normal People did with Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Despite the reluctance coming from devoted fans of the book when Joe Alwyn was announced to play Nick, he succeeds at matching his down-on-his-luck energy. Sizzling chemistry pulsates between the four leads throughout all 12 episodes, playing well off of each other despite some characters not sharing the screen as much as others.
The biggest strength of Conversations with Friends is that it has an organically flowing narrative with an emotional core that balances the many dynamics at play. A character-driven series that captures people in their rawest moments, Conversations with Friends is a refreshing exploration of contemporary relationships, the many little aspects that factor into them, and the ways that relationships evolve over time. Nothing grand happens in Conversations, but what makes it special is that it captures some of the mundane and seemingly unexciting parts of life that feel like the entire world for its characters.
