The show kicks off when Sydney realizes that her anger motivates her chaotic telekinesis, but the timing is otherwise not very conducive to the other storylines it’s trying to serve, namely her struggling to fit in a town she moved to two years prior and clarify what she feels towards Dina, her avowed best friend who doesn’t seem to understand Sydney at all, powers or no. As the series marches towards its climactic ending, it feels more like it’s running down a list of necessary beats rather than weaving them in naturally. Sydney’s powers and understanding of her father’s death - develop too slowly given that the season only has seven episodes in which to explore them. This lackluster execution of a potentially interesting idea haunts “I’m Not Okay With This” in more ways than one. Dina is nice and pretty, a combination that can certainly be enough to send a reluctantly hormonal teen like Sydney spiraling, but it would be far more convincing and compelling if Dina (also the only non-white person on the show) had more of a defined personality to get us even half as invested in her as Sydney. They’re supposedly so close that neither can make sense of whether it’s friendship or something more, but the writing doesn’t try too hard beyond insisting as much to convince the audience why that’s the case. The one dynamic that doesn’t work is, unfortunately, the one between Sydney and Dina. She’s especially good opposite Aidan Wojtak-Hissong as her kid brother Liam and Oleff, her “It” co-star who turns in a funny and sneakily nuanced performance as the town’s resident oddball. Lillis, an able actor who’s heretofore been relegated a supporting player, tackles Sydney’s frustrated fury in such a way that the moments when it gives way to her wide-eyed heartbreak can be very moving. Its deliberately washed-out palette and retro aesthetic, for example, recall the calibrated vibe of “Sex Education,” while its mysterious paranormal activity in a Rust Belt town feels like a stray “Stranger Things” subplot. The series, based on Charles Forsman’s graphic novel and co-created by Christy Hall and “End of the F***ing World” producer Jonathan Entwistle, slots right into Netflix’s existing oeuvre of teen-focused shows.
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