✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
TV

Euphoria, Sky Atlantic review ★★★★★

06 Aug 19 – 06 Aug 20, 10:00 PM – 11:05 PM

In Euphoria, Zendaya stars as Rue Bennet, a 17-year-old drug addict just out of rehab. She tries to navigate her anxious, Gen-Z life without any intention of getting clean

By Euan Franklin on 6/8/2019

1 CW reader is interested
Hunter Schafer and Zendaya in Euphoria, Sky Atlantic
Hunter Schafer and Zendaya in Euphoria, Sky Atlantic
Euphoria, Sky Atlantic review 5 Euphoria, Sky Atlantic review Euan Franklin
The narrator of Euphoria - the new, hallucinogenic teen drama on Sky Atlantic - is seventeen years old and just out of rehab, following a near-death overdose. She's barely arrived back when she goes to a preteen drug dealer, scoring a pill imprinted with a snowflake.


Rue Bennet was born three days after 9/11, the stress and terror of the modern world immediately broadcast to her new-born eyes. She eases her anxiety disorder with hard drugs, some littered with incomprehensible letters and numbers. She doesn’t care what they do, as long as they numb her pain. Her experience unfurls like a haunting, hypnotic mind-trip.



Rue (Zendaya) eases her anxiety disorder with hard drugs

Rue tells her story, and the stories of everyone around her, in a transgressive, existential haze – like a Gen-Z version of the addiction fiction of Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) cut with the privileged, uncomfortable characters of Bret Easton Ellis (The Rules of Attraction).


Writer/creator Sam Levinson (Assassination Nation) pits Rue’s individual anxieties with the anxieties of the Western world. As she says to the drug-dealer's older brother: ‘the world’s coming to an end, and I haven’t even graduated high school yet’.


The first episode focuses on Rue while introducing the classmates who drift through her life. Each demonstrates a common teen drama archetype, but Levinson shrouds them in darker colours. He plunges into the childhoods of the characters, explaining why they are the way they are - breaking them down like engaging, psychological case studies. Even the most detestable specimens earn some small hits of empathy.



Nate (Jacob Elordi) is the slimiest of the slimy jocks

Why is Nate (Jacob Elordi), the slimiest of the slimy jocks, so manipulative and misogynistic? Why does the transgender girl Jules (Hunter Schafer) cut herself at a house party? Why does the fat-shamed, nerdy girl Kat (Barbie Ferreira) suddenly turn to ‘camming’ on porn sites?


Euphoria explores these elements of the current teen experience with a rare honesty, brutally told. Despite the energetic style with its rotating cameras, split screen editing, and poppy soundtrack (Billie Eilish, Drake, Lizzo etc.), this up-to-date realism pulses all the way through.


Nudes and d***-pics are ubiquitous, with Rue eloquently dismantling the former as ‘the currency of love’ and the latter as ‘the windows to the soul’. Kat loses her virginity and the subsequent sex tape goes viral on PornHub. Porn also distorts real sex as McKay (Algee Smith), who clearly believes he’s above the primal misogyny of his classmates, chokes his partner Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) without consent because that’s how pornstars do it.



Kat (Barbie Ferreira) loses her virginity and the sex tape goes viral


At the centre of all this is ex-Disney star Zendaya, who often gives the most absorbing performances in movies without revealing her full potential (The Greatest Showman, Spider-Man: Far From Home). At last, Euphoria mines her overwhelming talent – vividly confirmed for all to see - accommodating all of Rue’s nerves, frustrations and periods of contentment with a devastating, electric magnetism.

Unlike other recent teen dramas, which either graze these bleak Gen-Z issues (Eighth Grade) or ignore them completely (Booksmart), Euphoria dives straight into a filthy deep-end. It makes Sex Education look like Downton Abbey.


Rue's not a lost cause - there's a hopeful light at the end of a dingy tunnel - but she's a dangerously unreliable one. Considering she's our guide through the chaos, every scene has the potential to maim, shock, and amuse. Approach with caution.


Euphoria airs Tuesdays at 10pm on Sky Atlantic. All episodes are available to watch on Sky.




What Euphoria, Sky Atlantic review
When 06 Aug 19 – 06 Aug 20, 10:00 PM – 11:05 PM
Price £n/a
Website Click here for more information



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend. Fumi Kaneko in Cinderella, The Royal Ballet © 2023 Tristram Kenton
Things to do in London this weekend: 31 March – 2 April
Irene Maiorino and Alba Rohrwacher in My Brilliant Friend season 4, HBO/Sky Atlantic (Photo: HBO)
My Brilliant Friend, season 4, Sky Atlantic: first-look photo, release date, plot, cast
Best art exhibitions in London. Photo: Thin Air at the Beams
Top exhibitions on now in London

Editor's Picks

Jeremy Strong in Succession season 4, Sky Atlantic (Photo: Sky/HBO)
What to watch on TV this week
Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany in Mindhunter season 2, Netflix
Mindhunter season 2: release date, photos, cast, plot
Janet Leigh in Psycho, coming to Netflix in August
New to Netflix UK: August 2019
Dafne Keen in His Dark Materials, BBC One
His Dark Materials, BBC One, episode 1 review
Anna Friel in Deep Water, ITV
Deep Water, ITV review
Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag, BBC
BBC iPlayer box sets: what's on?
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
1

Euphoria

Zendaya

Sky Atlantic

Gen-Z

Teen

TV

2019

You might like

  • Circe TV adaptation comes to HBO

    Circe TV series, HBO

  • Michelle Williams and Sam Rockwell as Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse

    Fosse/Verdon, BBC2 review ★★★★★

  • Jeremy Strong in Succession season 2, Sky Atlantic

    Succession season 2, Sky Atlantic review ★★★★★

  • Martin Freeman in A Confession, ITV

    A Confession, ITV review ★★★★★

  • Eve Myles in Keeping Faith, BBC One/iPlayer

    Keeping Faith series 2, BBC review ★★★★★

  • Tom Holland and Jake Gyllenhaal in Spider-Man: Far From Home

    Spider-Man: Far From Home review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×