Any program with this opening scene is going to get my attention. Unfortunately, it failed to keep my attention.
The program is Pretty Smart on Netflix, about Harvard grad student/aspiring novelist Chelsea (former Disney teen Emily Osment), who comes to L.A. to visit her long-estranged free-spirit sister Claire (Olivia Mackiln).
Claire's roommates are drawn as the most broad-based stereotypes to fall out of a writer's laptop since junior high creative writing class.
1. Dumb jock Grant (former Disney teen Greg Sulkin). Olivia explains that they used to date, but now they're platonic roommates.
"How French!" Claire exclaims.
Grant responds "No, Nebraska."
2. Fluttering, diamond-as-big-as-the-Ritz flashing, screaming queen Jayden (Michael Hsu Rosen). Sorry, Greg Sulkin was in the photo, too, so I accidentally cut Michael out. He's in the bottom photo.
3. Ditzy New Age chakra-and-crystal 1990s throwback Solana. "I'm going to make you a garlic-tumeric-lemon shot."
The absurdly repressed stick-in-the-mud Chelsea dislikes them all -- their enthusiasm, their hugging, their joie de vivre! How crazy is it to have fun? Don't they understand that you're supposed to hate your life and be depressed all the time?
I actually prefer the stereotypes.
But she comes around -- in just one episode. Jayden discovers that Grant is depressed because he doesn't have a shed, so he buys one for him. Friends are...um...nice to each other? Without an ulterior motive? Maybe this joie-de-vivre stuff isn't so bad after all.
These writers don't know anything.
1. Chelsea met her boyfriend Dwayne in her class in 15th Century Comparative South American Literature Across Multi-Ethnic Diaspora Migrations. The Mesoamerican civilizations of Pre-Columbian America had writing systems, but none of the South American civilizations did. Unless they were translating the title, and didn't realize that in Spanish, the 15th Century is the 1500s.
2. She brings a gigantic hardbound book read at the coffee shop (never heard of paperbacks?): Remembrance of Things Past. "His finest, don't you think?" Yeah, and his only. Except it's multivolume, so you usually mention the specific volume you're reading: In a Budding Grove, The Cities of the Plain, and so on.
(The barista flirting with her has never heard of Proust. He's reading The DaVinci Code).
3. Boyfriend dumps her -- he was just using her for her female perspective on Garcilaso de la Vega's ahistoricism. Ok, they got that one right: the 16th century Spanish-American historian has been accused of being ahistorical. But why would there be male and female perspectives?
Too humiliated to go back to Harvard, Claire decides to stay. The free spirits will teach her joie de vivre, and she'll teach them...what?
I don't know. I'm not going to stick around to find out, unless Greg Sulkin has more shirtless shots. Or Michael Hsu Rosen, minus the screaming-queen outfit.
source http://everydayheterosexism.blogspot.com/2021/10/pretty-smart-pretty-stupid.html