Netflix’s teen drama 13 Reasons Why is smart and compelling

THERE’S a reason why teen dramas resonate so much with people well past those angsty years, and 13 Reasons Why knows it.

REVIEW

WHY are high school experiences such rich material for films and TV?

Sure, teenagers have more spare time on their hands to obsess over these shows and movies but the viewing audience has never been limited to those worrying over whether their crush knows they’re alive.

Teen stories resonate because those years are filled with so much angst (and everything is super important when you’re 15) and there’s never another period in your life that is THAT dramatic. You will never again pore over every moment of every scenario, looking for the significance of a glance or a walk-by, unless, of course, you’re a Game of Thrones recapper.

For most of us, watching teens (or in many cases, actors in their 20s) flailing around on-screen with all that naivety allows us to either fondly remember our giddy innocence or give us the reassurance that whatever pain we may have been in then, we survived and became (mostly) functioning adults.

Not all teen titles will find an adult audience, but the smarter ones always do.

Netflix’s latest series, 13 Reasons Why, falls into the latter category.

The Woman in White.

Based on a popular young adult novel by Jay Asher, the adaptation has been a passion project of Selena Gomez’s since 2011. Gomez was originally slated to play Hannah and remains a producer on the series. She even released a new song for the show.

13 Reasons Why follows a central mystery structure in that it sets up one main question that the show will try to answer over 13 episodes, which Hannah (Perth actor Katherine Langford) poses in voiceover: “The story of my life and why it ended.”

When the series starts, it’s one week after Hannah’s inexplicable suicide and the school community is reeling from why this confident and intelligent girl would kill herself.

Among them is Hannah’s friend and classmate Clay Jensen (Dylan Minette). That afternoon, he arrives home to find a box of cassette tapes at his door. After tracking down a tape player (because it’s 2017), Clay’s stunned to find Hannah’s voice speaking to him.

She tells him that he’s one of 13 people featured on 13 tape sides and that they would reveal why she chose to end everything and who is responsible. Clay’s not the only one the tapes are given to and Hannah also warns that he’s being watched.

“What is this confounded contraption?”

It’s a compelling hook which works because the characters are so watchable.

Perhaps it’s the strength of the source material but the teen characters are fully fleshed-out people. They’re not the archetypes you often box youngsters into — these guys are the Breakfast Club peeps at the end of the movie. The seemingly braggadocios jock has family problems and his cheerleader girlfriend is far from a ditz. These teens all have complex inner lives.

And there’s a real tussle between what we, as viewers, are supposed to believe. Hannah’s voiceover gives her narrative privilege but as one character says, “don’t believe everything you hear.” Flashbacks fill in the blanks from different perspectives but the early episodes, directed by Spotlight’s Tom McCarthy, doesn’t direct you towards an unimpeachable truth.

It doesn’t quite have the emotional nuance of something like My So-Called Life nor is it likely to have Freaks and Geeks’ cultural legacy. But there’s something in 13 Reasons Why that will have you flashing back to your own dramatic high school years.

13 Reasons Why is available to stream on Netflix today from 6pm AEDT.

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