I saw this show in the 'what's coming next week' section on Netflix. I look at that quite often and I was truly interested by 'Can You Hear Me?' had to offer. It is about three friends from a low income neighbourhood who find humour and comfort within each other. I grew up quite poor and I found this subject really relatable and I like shows about friendship that cut through the bullshit and show real strife and reality. Each episode is around twenty-two minutes long and it is a perfect bite of content. It almost has a web-series vibe to it because it comes across more authentic and less sensational. There is such a cute stop animation intro scene which leads into the song 'The best things in life are fee' by Janet Jackson starts. The editing introducing the setting is fun and engrossing and there is a youthfulness to the way areas are being shown in such high energy.
The song mentions money and "that's what I want" and that is an easy, simple way of conveying the character's situations. We meet the first girl who is called Ada who is wearing a nineties-style choker and blagging her way through her therapist meeting. She looks at a chart of an emotional scale and seems to lie and be completely disinterested in being there. Flashbacks show her being the opposite calm- screaming, shouting, whacking people. There is funny editing showing her doing so. I like how this slightly trivializes what she does and shows how non severe she sees her behaviour. We meet another character sat in a car, not answering texts and reading Agatha Christie. Her name is Caro and her car horn doesn't work. She seems more subdued compared to Ada who leaves the therapist's room and presents her middle finger to the people she does not know in the waiting room. She seems very brash and thrill-seeking as she leaves without a car in the world and jumps into the car with Caro.
Initially we see these two young woman as quite rude characters. Ada gets out of the car and gets a woman who has stopped in her car to move and uses quirky phrases like "move, you big strawberry". This reminds me of the british TV show Skins which uses language like that which actually sound as if young people actually use them. They arrive as a burrito fast food chain and there is a sadness to Caro because she can't decide on what to eat and you get the feeling it's not just food that she is indecisive about. Perhaps it is her life too. They get shouted at by an employee but we discover that she is putting on a pretence of what her boss would want to see and she is actually their friend - Fabiola. Ada and Caro sit with their food. Ada steals bites from Caro's meal and the quiet personality with the robust personality makes entertaining and nice viewing. I like the dynamic a lot and even more so when Fabiola gets off her shift and joins them. The trio are three vastly different people and is very representational of different women in society which is a massive "thumbs up" from me if I want to do a "Simon Cowell"!
Fabiola gives them brownies but professes she is on a diet. She is bigger than the other two so she definitely seems to have insecurities about that. They return to Fabiola's flat where her mother is (who appears very ill) and they lounge and chat like regular young girls and they have conversations about pay checks and welfare checks and whether they count as being paid. They don't all agree, but get along so well anyway which is refreshing and realistic.
They go out to the subway and sing together for money with no instruments just acapella voices that don't necessarily go together. The songs being about Jesus is the only way Fabiola agrees to it. It goes well and they acquire money pretty easily. They are clearly hacking the system and are really resourceful people which excites me about the plots to come. The episode ends with them lying on a train track, running when a train comes and Ada ends up renting movies by showing her breasts to a video store guy. Caro later has a panic attack when reading a text from "Keven" who she has been avoiding. Ada and Fabiola react in different ways but one thing is certain - they both care very deeply for her. I, for one, am exciting to see where this show goes and it is shaping out to be one of my favourites I have seen during lock down!
Have you given this Netflix series a watch yet?
Over and out,
The Serial Television Watcher
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