Netflix’s Heartbreak High revival does it with attitude and swagger

The revival of an iconic 1990s favourite is so unapologetically itself – a brassy, unapologetic and big-hearted series.

In an era obsessed with nostalgia and mining the past for the new, there’s an irony to rebooting a teen show.

If there’s one aspect of culture that moves whiplash fast, it’s youth culture. While you’re hanging on to the memories of your first concert or still recommending Veep at the next dinner party, the kids have cycled through seven epochs of cool.

So, how do you recapture the spirit of a youth series from the 1990s? Specifically, how do you recapture the spirit of Heartbreak High, the iconic Australian teen soap opera renowned for being grittier and rawer than its glossy counterparts?

You accept that a new version of Heartbreak High is going to be an entirely, almost unrecognisable beast. But you hope that it stays true to the ethos of a groundbreaking series which lived by being true and authentic to an Australian experience.

Heartbreak High knows exactly what it is. Picture: Netflix

The Netflix revival does exactly this, but for a new generation of kids – so new, there’s been about three generations since Drazic swaggered around the playground with his eyebrow ring.

Sparkling with personality and verve, Heartbreak High is a fresh, distinctly Australian and distinctly 2022 series that doesn’t pay lip service to nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake.

This is a series that’s made for the kids of today, and not for the adults with fond memories of the original series. That’s not a slight on the either versions, more comment that this iteration knows what it is, much in the way that its ensemble of sassy, unapologetic and big-hearted characters know who they are.

It’s not overly tied to being reverent to what came before because – let’s face it – neither are the Zoomers to whom the series is serving.

The punchy vernacular, the vivid fashions, the brassy attitudes, and just the general milieu is so itself, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely alienating to anyone who remembers the fuss over Y2K.

Heartbreak High is streaming now. Picture: Netflix

Some teenage experiences are universal, regardless of the era – that all-consuming friendship which is deeper than any romance, that feeling of vulnerability when you put yourself out there to your crush, the elation of discovering something new when almost everything is new.

That’s resonant to all, even if at times there is a definite generational gap.

The revival – it does exist in the same universe as the original series because at least one old school cast member shows up as the older version of their 1990s character – is back at Hartley High.

There’s a class full of kids from across the spectrum of life, from queer and non-binary kids to culturally diverse and autistic kids, from adorable sweethearts to ice queens. But rather than it being some tokenistic, box-ticking exercise, the variety of characters and experiences are organic.

Like any Australian school, it’s a cornucopia of personalities and identities, which only serves to make the drama more interesting.

Heartbreak High doesn’t rely on nostalgia. Picture: Netflix

There’s the mysterious schism between best friends Amerie (Ayesha Madon) and Harper (Asher Yasbincek), so cryptic, not even Amerie knows what happened. There’s the new kid Malakai (Thomas Weatherall), who’s thrown into an almost-punitive sex education class on his first day of school.

There’s the fledging romances between Quinni (Chloe Hayden) and Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran), and between Darren (James Majoos) and Cash (Will McDonald).

And there’s the “incest map” which details the sexual interactions between the kids. There’s nothing shocking here, unless you’re shocked to discover that teenagers – gasp – have sex. And take drugs. And get up to dumb s**t.

It’s the sanitised versions of adolescence in which no one does that’s untruthful.

The characters are well developed, the performances are solid, especially for a lot of very photogenic newcomers, and the sense of humour is biting.

They are cliques and rivalries, misunderstandings and schemes, hurt feelings and giddy, stolen glances. It’s all pretty rote teenage drama but Heartbreak High does it with swagger. It’s a real vibe.

Heartbreak High is streaming now on Netflix