13 Reasons Why

13 Reasons Why (2017) 

A tough thing to review. It’s a pretty imaginatively told story (though the screenwriting leaves plenty to be desired) that in the 10th and 11th episodes, and especially in the 12th and 13th reaches a strong climax. But why the hell did the real drama have to start so late? Two thirds of the series are about a whining, over-sensitive cow trying to convince the over-sensitive audience that she is really to blame for her problems. Given the climax in the last episodes, I think it’s terrible that the series is built in such way that anyone watching it can get the idea that “it’s her fault”. And it is really like that, because until those last few episodes, they address the type of terrible pettiness that, in one way or another (and much worse), most people had to face in secondary school. As a result, I soon began hating all the characters, and actually poor Hannah most of all. Her teenage wisdom voiceover is annoying, and so is the permanently brooding expression of the only righteous person, Mr. Clay. The last episodes improve the impression, but the fact remains that I got to them only through willpower. The pettiness piles up and piles up, to the point that it is no longer pettiness, and all that remains is antipathy towards the characters. By the way, does anyone really believe that, in 2017, someone feeling so truly downtrodden as to kill themselves would record 13 cassettes before the act, where they would speak about their suffering, almost without emotion and with a “narrative perspective”? And to perform graceful narrative pirouettes like “I’ll leave this part of the story for later”? This series portrays suicide as a romantic gesture, and I believe that’s very dangerous. If this had come up ten years ago, when the Emo style was all the rage, I think we would’ve had a few more dead teenagers. (17/04/2017)