Fleabag is one of the best series in Amazon Prime Video's catalog of originals. There is no need to go around it. Twelve episodes that have conquered the public and critics in an indisputable way, launching the career of its protagonist (and author) to the stars Phoebe Waller-Bridge. However, the goal is not just to say whether or not a series deserves the vision, but to explain why to look at it, that is, investigating the causes that make it so deserving. So let's go deeper into this show.
Fleabag, pure British television
The premise behind Fleabag is simple. Its protagonist is a young woman from London who lives a relatively ordinary life. She runs her own business, an open café with her best friend, which, however, is struggling to be truly profitable. He has a relationship conflictual with his sister, whom he defines as "rigid, beautiful and probably anorexic" but even more so with his father and stepmother. This is accompanied by a free and active love life, but often tormented. And broadly that's all.
Of course, scratching the surface they come out all the peculiarities of the life of our protagonist. Its history is more complex than these four to five lines, but it always remains a very simple starting point. In short, no time-traveling phone booths or superhero-edge investigative consultants.
And it is precisely in this simplicity, partly derived from the world of theater, where Fleabag originates and is then transposed to TV, which is the profoundly English power of the show. No elaborate starting points, no stellar budgets for staging and no desire to overdo the story. Only twelve episodes, practically a season (if not half) of other series, starred by an extraordinary cast and written with out-of-scale care.
There is a reason why Phoebe Waller-Bridge, author and lead performer of the show and even before the play, she picked up Golden Globes and Emmys. From a script point of view, in the purest English tradition, Fleabag is practically perfect. The dialogues flow one after the other at an exceptional pace, with each word carefully weighed. All to paint a perfect fresco of modernity.
Fleabag tells how we tell lies
What this series does perfectly, and which is a key to its success, is represent insecurity and doubts that modern life places before women and men, young and old. Indeed, there is something more. Fleabag tells not only those, but also the masks, the barriers that are placed in front of them. Almost with a magic trick, Phoebe Waller-Bridge's pen manages to portray both the hiding place and what it hides.
The key is all in the breaking of the fourth wall of the protagonist. From the very first moments, the series proceeds with a continuous dialogue with the public, who is a confidant and a student at the same time. The woman tells us about (her?) Life, explaining all the mechanics that dominate it and highlighting its absurdities and distortions. All with a ironic detachment, a way to take yourself out of what is happening, a way to show yourself confident in your own insecurities, but that emerge anyway.
Because basically, the spectators are the confidants of the protagonist, but also represent her conscience. The dialogue is externalized with the expedient of breaking the fourth wall, ma it is at the same time internal. And it is fascinating therefore to reflect on the fact that there is a second mask layer, a protective barrier, which is what it shows itself. And let's not enter into the discussion of how the dialogue with the public evolves in the second season, because it could continue for hours and hours (but above all it would be spoiler!).
Don't make the mistake of thinking that it is only the woman in the center who wears these masks. No, insecurity pervades all characters of Fleabag and slowly you will begin to notice small, large cracks in their barriers, through which to peek at their essence. And each one tells of a piece of us.
A complete package
Fleabag is one of those perfect products, which are born, develop and end, without ever collapsing, without exaggerating, without smudging and always remaining at the highest levels. A TV series that you can see in an afternoon or two and that will flow clearly, conquering you from the first moment and proceeding directly towards its conclusion. A little pearl of the Amazon Prime Video catalog that is absolutely unmissable and that will make you madly love Phoebe Waller-Bridge, whose career deservedly took off thanks to this show, making her one of the artists to keep an eye on carefully for years to come.
Discount
Fleabag: Series 1 & 2 (2 Dvd) [Edition: UK]
- Actors: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
- Format: PAL
- Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired: English
