I can only imagine this show being written as a Manga, but excuted as live-action because Manga is expensive and not available in the arab world. The author also projected the Manga theme on the middle-eastern culture, so you get some sort of a frankenstein movie.
Different Manga themese present themselves in the show, and they're hard to miss, neither are they subtle: the protagonist is good, smart at school, and skillful in everything, and wears cute converse shoes
the antagonist who's pure evil for the sake of evil, who's clumsy in PE class
The protagonist has a best-friend and lifelong companion who is funny, clumsy, perhaps shorter and fatter.
The math wiz, the brain.
Showing the secret revenge plan with red yarns connecting persons, with pieces of information about each person, pinned on the wall. These are manga themes, not real-world themes.
The bully girl chewing gum, giving dirty looks to the new student, and fidgeting with her pen. That's a Manga thing, and it's done poorly. Get someone who knows how to spin a pen in there hand for real.
When the Manga theme is absent, there are still a few directing snafus from time to time:
the girl playing guitar in the first episode, it's obvious that the audio is not real. There's no background noise. It's even worse when you know that the actress playing guitar in the show, is actually a skilled piano player and a professional singer.
But the author thought that guitar is better for that particular scene.
Acting during the PE class is extremely poor. The penalty kick by the protagonist is a forced comedy scene, meant to belittle the antagonist bully.
Everybody i discussed the show with highlighted that the scenario writing (the conversations) is cheesy. Mediocre at best. The opening scene in the pilot, with the bus conversation, is meant to establish roles, from the first moment. Instead of letting the audience build their own opinions about the characters, and pick sides, the author establishes from the first scene that: this girl bad, this girl good.
I am willing to bet you a million dollars, that in the whole wide middle east, from the gulf to the ocean, there isn't a single anarchist-mind gothic-style teenage hacker girl. And if there was, her name is definitely not some archaic nomadic-culture name of "nouf", neither in her 6-degrees social circle.
You can't even find anyone called nouf today, not to mention, a gothic anarchist hacker girl.
This character should have had a name which carries a meaning and a theme of: mystery, dark and ambiguous. A name like: qamar, laila, malak, anna (and mention casually that this happens to have an arabic meaning of: a girl who moans silently).
The author might as well have called her "fahmeyye", being the brain in the group.
The casting choice of the protagonist and her best friend is spot on. But the casting of the evil girls is poor. The second girl (the red head) is obvoiusly not of high-school age. And hair extensions... a lot of hair extensions...
there are a couple of plot holes, which the author tried to mask or skipped.
How did the protagonist set up the list of girls-rooms in the school trip? Was she assigned to it? Did the group hack the school system?
No one in their right mind keeps their personal diary and their anti-depressant in their gym bag, unattended. Anti-depressants are usually 1 pill taken in the morning. They are not carried around all day. Except for anxiety pills.
On the second episode.
They dont show how the protagonist got the girls in trouble the first time, by stealing their phone conversations and playing them on public speakers.
The daughter of a very influential person would NOT serve community service under any circumstances.
Certain situations were forced, and they dont usually occur in middle eastern societies:
a college guy befriending a highschool girl, going out with her on dates, and inviting her to his private condo, only to watch a movie with her? Really?
There is like this weird funny teleportation. The show is set up as a japanese Manga, until the fanatic brother shows up and kicks the door down, then the scene suddenly teleports to jordan.
I really dont believe that such communities exist in jordan. It's all Manga, and it's being praised because it's an arab production which made it to Netflix.
A young girl in the middle east would know better than to enter a swimming pool when there's only 1 creepy old man. Where were the life guards?
On the other hand, there are a few good things about the show. Things which are so good that make the show somehow acceptable.
I like a lot how layan highlights the contrast in nouf's response to each of the 2 harassment situations. In the first, she wanted to keep it down and bury the whole incident. In the dancing club, she wanted people to support her and punish the guy. While nouf's reaction is realistic in both cases, it really makes me think why would the reaction to each harassment incident should be different?
Without episode 5, the show is just a tom-cruis-ish revenge story. Episode 5 showed you that the bully also might have a good side, a human side.
At the same time, the protagonist took it too far with her revenge plan. There might be also a subtle message there, that doing little harm to harmless kids will bring out angry vengeful grudgeful adults, who'll go as far as facilitating murder. People will think maryam is a b****, but she really is the victim of bullying.
Just like the 2014 movie "the interview" teaches us, you can't take down a high-profile popular person while they're in their prime. You can't get back at the bully while they are in their prime popularity and highest approval levels. You need to wear them down, destroy their popularity, then take them down. The show got this right.
Indirectly, the show warns teenagers about classical hackers' traps on social media. Something like "open this link". There are sadly desperate teenagers who are willing to take their risk and open that link.
6 out of 8 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
