![]() It becomes, as her family and friends and the connections (and disconnections) between them are fleshed out, a meditation on our responsibilities to ourselves and each other. You have to take a moment.Īrabella gradually piecing the night together and substantiating her suspicions is the throughline for the dozen episodes, but each one takes in so much more it becomes almost – but never quite, because Coel’s discipline and sense of structure are as formidable as the rest of her abilities – dizzying. When everything is malleable, where can violation occur? Memory, feelings, are not enough. There’s an awful lot of relativism about. ![]() It sums up the contemporary world and sexual landscape Arabella and her friends (aspiring actress Terry and aerobics instructor and heavy Grindr user Kwame, played by Weruche Opia and Paapa Essiedu respectively) live in – the soft contours and shifting boundaries of which they are perpetually navigating in their early 30s. The detached “Huh” she gives to this revelation encapsulates in a syllable the drama’s unique tone and approach – always about 30 degrees off where you were expecting it to come from. The early morning finds her back in front of her laptop with little memory of how she got there except for a vision of a man looming over her in a toilet as a hazily remembered sexual assault takes place. Halfway through her final night of grace allowed by her publisher, she goes out for a break that turns into a night out. It’s both pain and love, suffering and redemption.Coel plays Arabella, the author of a bestseller, Chronicles of a Fed-Up Millennial, based on her popular Twitter account, and now struggling to finish the first draft of her follow-up book on time. The TV-MA rating for this series is well-earned. Is Arabella ready to make a good choice at this point? Good choices haven’t been her strong suit. Criminals always return to the scene of the crime, right? When she finally sees him, her memory comes rushing back. That makes it harder for her to see what’s happening with Terry and Kwame.Īfter a few months pass, she stakes out the Ego Death Bar, looking for the man who raped her. She gives advice to rape survivors everywhere. Who is guilty, who is innocent, who is free of blame? What happens to the unbearable memories? What, exactly, is consent? It gets deep.Īrabella’s not writing that overdue novel, but she’s turning herself into a social media influencer. It takes a while before Arabella can even see his problem.Īll these situations, and others, allow Michaela Coel as the writer of the series the freedom to expand the sexual assault theme with subtle nuance and depth. Kwame’s a gay man who has a sexual assault story of his own. Terry and Kwame are there for Arabella through every stage of her struggle, even when she’s unbearable. Kwame (Paapa Essiedu) is Arabella’s other best friend. Zain instead becomes a sexual predator himself. Her editors assign Zain (Karan Gill) to help Arabella get her novel going. The twists and turns that she goes through to dig out of what happened to her bring up events from high school and her childhood. She goes to therapy, sobers up, and attends group sessions for survivors led by her old high school enemy Theodora (Harriet Webb). She goes to the police, but they can’t put together enough evidence to figure out who did it. She meets friends at the Ego Death Bar, is drugged, and is raped. She gives herself an hour to take a break. Now she’s under contract to write a novel. Her first book was a series of Twitter posts. Terry engages in a threesome that she later learns may not have been what she thought it was.īack home in London, Arabella has a book draft to finish. Arabella hooks up with the guy who sells drugs, Biagio (Marouane Zotti). The story begins with Arabella and her best friend Terry (Weruche Opia) in Italy. Her performances in Black Earth Rising, Been So Long, and other works absolutely cemented my opinion on this, and I May Destroy You is further proof. I consider Coel one of the most talented and important creatives in the industry today. In an effort to survive that, she’s created this challenging and frank work of art. Coel suffered a sexual assault when she was making Chewing Gum. It’s hard work, it’s laid bare, it’s honest, and it’s real. I May Destroy You takes a non-linear approach to telling the story of Arabella (Michaela Coel) and her efforts to remember a sexual assault, make sense of it, relate to other people’s assaults, and process the troublesome memories from her past. Powerhouse talent Michaela Coel starred in, created, and co-directed the series with Sam Miller. It’s a story about sexual assault and recovery, about consent, about friendship, and about facing your own truth. I May Destroy You is a British series from the BBC, now streaming on HBO Max.
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