The TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestseller about two young people falling in and out of love in post-crash Ireland is intimate, touching and tender
All the way back in 2018, even among fans, it was easy to feel that Sally Rooney’s Normal People was the most tiresome subject of the year. The novel, about two young people falling in and out of love in post-crash Ireland, was a huge bestseller as soon as it arrived, on the back of almost universal critical acclaim and passionate word-of-mouth. A Man Booker nomination came and went; Obama liked it; within two books, Rooney had become the Voice of a Generation. And as is the modern way with a cultural touchstone, we almost ruined something admirable and popular with a barrage of scrutiny. Countless thinkpieces announced that we held a future classic in our hands, or the worst book ever written. Before Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie MacDonald’s adaptation for BBC/Hulu even started filming, it was hard to imagine there would be anything new to say in two years’ time.
Yet for all the noise around Normal People, the TV adaptation is remarkable in its quietness. Just like its source material, it is intimate and tender, a coming-of-age tale told through meaningful silences and gentle caresses more often than whizz-bang dialogue. But where the book is cool and sharp, the show is dreamier, lingering as it does on hazy afternoon sun spilling across a messy bed, a summer in an Italian villa, closeups of flushed skin.