Netflix never finishes to astonish us. Among the original series released by the well-known American on demand streaming company, Atypical is the most recent show.
Little, or absent advertising has hidden a true revelation: one that proved itself as a solid product from the first to the eighth episode. There are 8 episodes, in fact, of thirty minutes each. They tell the story of Sam, an American boy whose days are spent between family, college, his interest in Antarctica, meetings with his therapist and relationships with girls.
Therapist, we said. Yes, because Sam (Keir Gilchrist) is autistic. And here is the bravery of the creator of the series Robia Rashid and director Seth Gordon: they showed with intensity and, contemporarily, with irony this neurodevelopmental disorder. Atypical is a lightweight series, able to develop carefully the characteristics of the life of those affected by this disorder, and those lives that revolve around it.
Sam is the protagonist, but also the mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Daisy Domergue of the western-yellow movie directed by Quentin Tarantino, “The Hateful Eight”, for which she received a nomination for the Oscars 2016 as Best Actress in a Supporting Role, along with a Golden Globe and BAFTA for the same category), the father, sister, best friend, therapist, girlfriend are characterized even in the tiniest detail, revealing their atypical and deep humanity. So many stories in a single narrative. All of them interesting and engaging, in a way that make you connect soon with the characters.
And then there is autism: some of its shades are told with irony (and this removes a lot of rhetoric and seriousness from the topic) but there are also moments that highlight the suffering of a disease that’s still, in many ways, unknown. That’s the reason why each and every little conquest of Sam is a bit ours, too.
The premises are really good for another season if, and we hope so, Netflix will give us a second one.
And let’s remember, as goes the slogan beneath the title: “Normality is overrated“.
