The recent release of Netflix’s series “You,” has sparked a lot of debate on social media about what real love is and whether the stalking illustrated is romantic or cute. And just so we’re clear… stalking is not love!
“You” is a brilliant adaptation of a book of the same
A major part of the plot revolves around the characters’ fake personas on social media and their misery behind the fake smiles in their candid photos.
The series focuses on the main character, Joe Goldberg played by Penn Badgley, and his growing obsession over NYU English Graduate Student Guinevere Beck played by Elizabeth Lail.
The two meet in a bookstore, where Goldberg works, and within one credit card transaction he hooks on to Beck, finds all of her social media profiles, who her friends are, where she lives and countless other personal things.
Usually cute meetings like this are just a good start to someone’s day or maybe even the start of a friendship, but now, every time I swipe my credit card I wonder if someone is actually looking at who I am…creepy!
After this, Goldberg spends a few days watching everything Beck does through the window to her apartment at NYU as she works with professors and while out with her friends. In all honesty, this part wasn’t really believable. How do you not notice the same man following you everywhere you go? Especially when he didn’t do an insanely good job of hiding himself.
Goldberg learns Beck’s habits and becomes familiar with her hookups, friends and other interactions. He shadows her every move, which is why when she drunkenly falls onto subway tracks one night, he is the one that is there to save her– still not romantic. And also not very believable, coincidences like this don’t happen!
After a few minutes of interacting and realizing that they’ve already met before, Beck realizes that she “lost” her phone. Joe conveniently has the phone in his pocket, but he keeps this from her, bringing it home so he can uncover the few things he doesn’t know about her by going through it.
This interaction ultimately leads to their friendship and later on relationship, which seems pretty happy. But that doesn’t stop Goldberg from killing anyone he sees as a threat to their relationship.
While, as a journalist, I applaud Goldberg’s ability to dig and find information about Beck, as a college-age female this is extremely concerning, and raises a bunch of hypothetical and terrifying situations in my mind.
As a whole, “You” deserves all of the recognition it has been given in the past few months. The story line is eventful, but not cluttered with action, which makes it authentic. The characters, while flawed and messed up, are played beautifully and take the audience on an emotional rollercoaster ride of fear, happiness, concern and sympathy.