Starstruck

What's the title?

Starstruck

Who created it?

Rose Matafeo

When did it air?

2021-Present

What’s it rated?

TV-MA

Would I recommend it?

Yes. This show was fresh and effervescent, a perfect balance of smart and bubblegum à la Clueless.

What's it about? (non-spoilers)

This six-episode BBC romcom begins with Jessie, a Kiwi ex-pat living in London, going out with her friend to a bar on NYE, where she promptly gets quite drunk. She connects with a handsome stranger, Tom, at the bar, and the two enthusiastically ring in the New Year back at his place. The next morning, in the cold light of day and now only slightly hung-over, Jessie is shocked to discover that her holiday one-night stand is a very famous movie star. Hijinks ensue.

What did you think? (spoilers)

So, this was delightful. It was a fresh and invigorating take on its genre. It earns both the rom and the com in its title, which you’d think would be a foregone conclusion, but you’d be surprised by how many romcoms are neither romantic nor comedic.

Both lead characters end up being fully fleshed humans who earn the audience’s sympathy while their (real) flaws remain clearly on display. In fact, every character on screen (with possibly the exception of Dan, Jessie’s sex “friend”) is presented as complex. All of the show’s sinners get their chance to shine, to be the hero, even if it’s just a single line, and all of our saints get a moment to lose their temper or make a terrible choice or just have a moment of human frailty. The eclectic ensemble of friends very much gave me Richard Curtis vibes, like Notting Hill and even Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Speaking of Four Weddings, that Hulu tv adaptation and Starstruck share their leading man in Nikesh Patel, and, I must say, the comparison does not serve Four Weddings well. It wounds my Mindy Kaling-loving heart to say it, but Four Weddings was a mess. A mess I watched all ten hours of, but a mess, nonetheless. And there were a lot of factors that led to that show’s messiness, but the Padme and Anakin in Attack of the Clones levels of non-chemistry between the two leads was certainly a factor. By comparison, the chemistry between Jessie and Tom is palpable. Watching the show, you absolutely understand why both people would be completely hung up on the other one. The show in no way rests on the “the two pretty people on screen are going to get together because they are the two pretty people on screen” that so many films and tv series rely on. Also, it’s nice to see a mixed-race, multi-cultural couple on screen (Matafeo is bi-racial and from Auckland, while Patel is South Asian and London born and bred).

The writing here is so sharp. Some of the lines have stuck in my head long after watching. I already mentioned the top-tier character work happening on screen, but the plotting and pacing are also excellent. This show moves so quickly. All the episodes are a tight twenty-two minutes, and each one uses every minute to peak effect. I watched the whole series on a single Thursday night. One of the essential tropes in romcoms is the Big Conflict – the fight which our two characters must resolve at the last minute to get that final denouement of coupled bliss. And this is hard to do well because how do you create a conflict that is large enough to be a real obstacle and not turn one (or both) of your leads into monsters? And Starstruck pulls this off with aplomb. When the Big Conflict raises its head in episode four, you see both their points of view and you also see how the other person’s point of view would be so upsetting to each other. It’s so good!

Another feather in the show’s cap is its status as a BBC production (I watched it on HBO Max). The Brits fund their TV with their tax dollars so they take it very seriously. Consequently, the production qualities were top-notch. The costuming, the set designs, the cinematography was all super competent. I’m not saying it was Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman, but this is a contemporary romcom. That kind of filmmaking would be distracting to the story. I (personally, for personal reasons) am currently very done with the city of London, but this show was charming enough that it made me not hate hanging out in London for a couple of hours. (That’s not me damning the show with faint praise. Getting me to not hate hanging out in a city from which I literally fled is no small achievement.) I feel both awe (and not a small amount of jealousy) that Rose Matafeo is literally my age and not only managed to create something so brilliant but also get it produced by the freaking BBC. She’s literally living the dream.

The show was nearly tailor-made for me with literally one exception. The level of raunch was slightly higher than my particular taste. I know romcom fans run the gamut in the amount of adult content that they prefer, and my preference is more on the PG-13 end of things. That said, Sleeping with Other People is one of my all-time favorite romcoms, and that movie is uber-raunchy, so it’s not like it’s a deal-breaker. Besides, I watched Starstruck with a viewing buddy whose preferences lean even more Victorian than my own, and she said that while she didn’t enjoy the more frankly sexual aspects, she thought the show, on the whole, was a delight. So, as I said, your mileage may vary. I’m just throwing this caveat in because I’ve been so glowing about this show, I thought it worthwhile at least to mention the one, eensy-weensy aspect that I didn’t love.

In summation, I loved this show, and I plan to sate myself with multiple rewatches as I count down the days to when season two drops.

Images: HBO Max