Review of the series "One of Us Is Lying" - a teenage detective about the vicissitudes of high school
Re-screen adaptation of Karen M. McManus' acclaimed teen novel
Early last year, American streaming service Peacock secured the rights to adapt Karen M. McManus' debut novel about a group of high school students caught in the middle of a twisted detective story. After the show was released on Peacock, the rights to show One of Us Is Lying were also acquired by Netflix, which has always been considered the cradle of quality youth content. Apparently, the film adaptation of McManus's book will be a kind of replacement for 13 Reasons Why, the flagship streaming show, also based on the bestseller of the same name.
Five high school students - Simon (Mark McKenna), Eddie (Annalise Cochrane), Bronwyn (Marianly Tejada), Nate (Cooper van Grutel) and Cooper (Chibuikem Uche) - stay after school on the first day of school. Alas, none of the heroes suspect that their sudden punishment will end in a real tragedy - the main school outcast Simon dies from a sudden anaphylactic shock. Now each of the remaining students is under the gun of the police. To make things worse, Simon managed to make quite a few enemies during his lifetime thanks to his revealing articles on the Internet.
Despite the rather twisted detective intrigue, “One of Us Is Lying” is more like a banal teenage melodrama built on archetypes familiar to its genre: a guy-athlete, a girl-learner, the first beauty, a bully and, of course, the main school outsider - all according to the precepts of the coming-of-age master John Hughes, whose films are still considered the standard of teenage cinema. In this respect, One of Us Lies is in many ways similar to the iconic Breakfast Club: a group of high school students, representatives of completely different social groups, are forced to be together. However, instead of heartfelt conversations about the problems of self-determination, we get an unexpected twist in the best traditions of Agatha Christie - Simon dies mysteriously, and the rest of the guys begin to suspect each other.
As events unfold, it becomes obvious that each of the main characters has their own reasons for killing the school provocateur - all of them at one time or another became victims of blackmail by Simon, who somehow managed to reveal their most terrible secrets. In fact, of course, the skeletons in the closet turn out to be not so scary, and in some cases they are completely trifling (someone cheated on someone, someone peeped the answers in the exam) - perhaps this is the reason why the series looks like continuous exploitation teen drama, where every emotional experience is cubed, and every second is presented as a tragic, almost Shakespearean hero. Due to the fact that the problems of the characters, to put it mildly, do not correspond to the degree of their involvement, it turns out to be quite difficult to feel. At the same time, the detective line unfolds very sluggishly, trying to hold off shocking revelations until the final episode, which, in turn, ends with a powerful cliffhanger.
Most of the plot of the generally good original is changed to suit the already planned continuation: as a result, instead of logical answers at the end, we get only more questions. Once upon a time, it was this decision of the producers that ruined the wonderful series 13 Reasons Why, which definitely should have ended in the first season. But, alas, Netflix's desire to create catalog content sooner or later kills any, even the most beautiful story. Given the fact that One of Us Lies initially looked like a tracing paper for many typical series, one should not expect anything good from the future sequel.
Comentarios