REVIEW #100 You (2018-present)

‘You’ is a Netflix original thriller series which follows Joe Goldberg, a man who will do anything for love, even kill. We see a modern day stalker, he uses social media and the internet to obsess over his crush as things seem to escalate further and further, until he removes every obstacle in his way to his ‘true love’.

CAST & THE ACTING 

Penn Badgley plays Joe Goldberg and he does brilliantly, capturing the creepiness of the character but also bringing a sort of charm as well. This is why, despite all of the horrible things Joe does in the show, people seem to be drawn to the character which is actually a pretty weird thing when you think into it. Elizabeth Lail plays his first victim Beck and she done well, she had to portray a complex character with so many layers and that takes a high degree of skill to pull off well. However the actress really on Badgley’s level is Victoria Pedretti, her performance helped create the biggest twist out of all 3 seasons and gave the audience and even darker character then Joe Goldberg. She was so convincing, which is why I would probably say her performance was the best out of the entire cast! What I will say about everyone in ‘You’ is that they all brought their A game to the series, I can’t name one bad actor. There are certainly some cliche characters, like Sherry in season 3 but even though it was so stereotypically cliche Shalita Grant played her so well that you genuinely hated the character at times. So a strong cast and some great acting here.

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

There is no doubt that the storyline in ‘You’ hooks the audience straight from the off. I was on the edge of my seat in every season and was genuinely surprised by some of the twists, which doesn’t happen very often! The one issue I do have is that it’s a pretty dangerous game romanticising a character as dark as Joe. I’m not sure if it was intentional but it seems like they’re genuinely trying to make you like and route for him despite him being a murderous stalker! Perhaps they were trying to highlight the fact that even the most charming people can be monsters, after all even Ted Bundy was deemed to be a charming guy. Other then that it was a very good storyline, it was very engaging and always had me guessing what was going to happen next. Most people I know binge watched every season which goes to show how hooked you can get on it. The relationship between Joe and Love Quinn was excellent, that twist in season 2 really impressed me and to further explore that dynamic in a suburban setting in season 3 was a nice way of developing those characters.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

The cinematography in this series is so well thought out, they were so clever using things such as reflections and small gaps in furniture to make the audience aware Joe was watching but blended him into the background, showing how good he was at stalking his victims. Except from the silly hat, that was almost like the cap made him invisible every time he put it on! There wasn’t any special effects used really but the blood and gore in many of the scenes throughout the three seasons always looked realistic. As I’ve mentioned in a lot of previous reviews, as soon as something looks unrealistic a lot of audiences will switch off and become less invested in what they are watching. So it was so important they got that element right. I also noticed how in season 3 they had many flashbacks to Joe’s time in a Children’s home as a child, those scenes were always more grey scale and dull coloured, this not only highlighted the fact it was a flashback scene but also illustrated how it was a dark period in Joe’s life that has effected him into his adulthood. So everything was kept nice and subtle but if you pay attention there are so many little things that show how much thought went into the cinematography for ‘You’.

OVERALL (9/10)

I did love this series, the acting was great and not only from the lead actors but pretty much the entire cast. Those performances helped create really convincing characters that made the plot so engaging, which hooked the audience straight away. Yes it’s probably not the best idea to romanticise a murderous stalker and make him such a likeable character but it’s important to remember it’s just a TV series and Netflix just want to make it as addictive as possible for an audience. I appreciated how much thought went into the cinematography, very subtle but worked so well. I’m not surprised that ‘You’ is one of Netflix’s most popular shows because it’s so good, so if you haven’t seen it already definitely go and watch 

Thanks for reading. 

Callan