Heartstoppers by Euros Lyn
Review by Anar M., Youth Reviewer
**Trigger Warning: brief mention of an eating disorder
Recently, I watched the show “Heartstopper” (directed by Euros Lyn), which is an adaptation of the graphic novel series of the same name by Alice Oseman. The main relationship is between Nick and Charlie, two students at an all-boy’s British high school.
I’m admittedly a graphic novel fan first and a show fan second, but I really enjoyed the little references to the graphic novels included in the show: animated leaves and flowers that flutter across the screen, in the same style as the ones Oseman drew in the comics, and a significant number of scenes follow Oseman’s original dialogue. There are also hints at themes that appear in later volumes of the graphic novel, such as Charlie’s eating disorder. But the show has value without reference to the source material, too.
A friend pointed out while we were watching that the show uses a blue and orange colour scheme for all of the important scenes between the two main characters. The high school they both attend has blue and orange as its school colours, hallways have panes of blue and orange-tinted glass, and in a scene at the beach, the water is blue and the sand is tinted orange. It’s fun to spot the occurrences of the colour scheme throughout the show, and it’s a clever piece of cinematography.
The show does fall a little into the (common) trap of adding drama to Nick and Charlie’s relationship. One thing I liked about the graphic novels was that Nick and Charlie’s relationship isn’t super dramatised — it doesn’t feel like Oseman was adding problems for the sake of having problems. Instead, I feel like the problems in the graphic novels are reasonable problems that a queer couple at an all-boy’s school would naturally face, and I don’t feel like the characters are making dumb decisions just so the author can make them break up and then get back together.
The show does add some elements of that to Nick and Charlie’s relationship — for example, shortly after Nick and Charlie get together, a girl asks Nick out in front of a group of people. He agrees, to avoid hurting her feelings, and then struggles with both telling her he’s not interested and telling Charlie about it. Watching that scene, I did feel frustrated with the show, because it felt like the whole situation could easily have been avoided.
Nevertheless, “Heartstopper” is a fun and delightfully diverse show. I’d highly recommend it.
Find “Heartstopper” at the Kitchener Public Library!