It's difficult for 'Such Brave Girls' not to have an impact in its first minutes. And not because it contains action scenes or a gruesome crime, but because it blows up dozens of social conventions in a few minutes. This series makes it clear from very early on that these three girls do not keep quiet about anything. Especially what has to do with the least taboo, it doesn't matter if it's about toxic relationships, rape, sexual identity, abortion, mental health, using others as means, or your favorite topic: suicide.
There are three of them, but they are not the same: Deb (Louise Brealey) is the mother, but not the most sensible or the most normal. She is characterized by a firm conviction in the power of the practical, without sentimentality, and she is a popular person who prefers one of her daughters over the other. The chosen one is Billie (Lizzie Davidson), and the despised Josie (Kat Sadler), the real protagonist. Among the three we find three completely deranged models of living that pass the dialectical ball around at dizzying speed and without ever resolving anything.
The themes to be discussed are the same as in any teenage series, there is no doubt about that. But for once the way of treating them is both fast and forceful. The way arguments are destroyed is incredible and incontestable. And what remains is a wonderful reflection of the current moral schizophrenia we all endure. Of the impact of ideas and ideologies, of social movements that propose utopias, of the harsh and sad realism that dismantles them in many cases. The mental cocoa that the battle in Josie's head gives rise to is spectacular and is the great discovery of the series: we live in a world of unbridled information, of ideas piled up like in a scroll of any social network that in the end make our brains overflow and don't keep anything. There are necessarily spectacular contradictions when we base our personality on clichés, fillers and apocalyptic sentences that we have heard from other people.
Josie (Kat Sadler) thinking too much about 'Such Brave Girls'.
R.C.
And yet, Josie is especially genuine. We are lucky to see the creator and mastermind behind the entire series in action. Perhaps it is an exaggeration to say that she is born a star, and easy to compare her to 'Fleabag' or 'Girls' (each series for a reason). A success for the BBC to trust someone so young, and another success for A24 to join. In the United States it is distributed by Hulu, and here by Filmin. Not only is she the creator, although they do not share an artistic last name, Sadler and Davidson are sisters in real life. And they couldn't be more different: in Billie's character there is the worst of unconsciousness, letting herself be carried away by impulses, being easily deceived and deceiving herself as much as possible, living for and for the most toxic classic romantic love and threatening to commit suicide fifteen times a day. Josie is the opposite, always thinking too much, thinking about everything a thousand times, always thinking about how things could turn out badly. Josie reflects—but always too much—on her sexuality, her relationship with her boyfriend, sister and mother, her mental health problems, her future, her freedom. Billie doesn't care about anything, but Josie is especially affected by this crazy, unstoppable world we live in, full of strident messages.
And all this incredible mental fight happens in a few scenarios, a house in an English suburb with little money, a ridiculous boyfriend, another who doesn't pay any attention, another who only at times seems like a functional adult. One day in the forest, another at a funeral. A constant humor, very black at times, friendly at others. Some people who need calm and a hug, each one for a reason. A series that definitely becomes short and asks for more. And a creator to keep track of, even though we know that the second step is always very complicated.
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