Conversations with Friends review — earnest Sally Rooney adaptation is no Normal People

Millennial malaise, Marxist commentary, sexual awakenings and self-sabotage: welcome back to the Sally Rooney-verse. Two years ago the Irish author’s second novel, Normal People, was translated from a bestseller into a streaming TV sensation. The creative team behind that show are now attempting to repeat the trick with a new mini-series for BBC3 and Hulu based on Rooney’s feted 2017 debut, Conversations with Friends.

Like the book, the adaptation follows Frances (newcomer Alison Oliver) and Bobbi (American Honey’s Sasha Lane). Former lovers turned friends, the two Dublin-based students are more likely to be found giving recitals at slam poetry events than downing tequila slammers. One night, after performing a punchy, feminist piece, they meet thirtysomething novelist Melissa (Jemima Kirke), who eagerly invites them to lunch the next day with her actor husband Nick (Joe Alwyn).

Bobbi arrives with an appetite for Melissa, who is receptive to the younger woman’s flirtations. Frances, however, lacking the confidence she has on stage, swallows her words with her food. The similarly reticent Nick relates to and is charmed by Frances’s diffidence and offers sideways glances and crooked smiles. And so a love quadrilateral takes shape.

The series is mostly concerned with the lines that connect Frances and Nick — much of their nascent relationship plays out in written messages. “I’ll craft you an email. It’ll be in complete sentences,” he says after a clumsy in-person exchange. Their ensuing stolen moments together — first out of sight at a party, then when Melissa leaves town — are largely defined by tacit communications. There are enough pregnant pauses here to fill a maternity ward.

Curiously for a series titled Conversations with Friends, the non-verbal interactions stand out more than the dialogue. That Frances and Nick struggle to articulate their feelings is integral to their relationship. That undergraduate students can be prone to self-involvement and self-righteousness is a given. But it’s hard not to feel worn down by the leaden seriousness that typifies so much of the talk here, whether it’s about love, friendship, identity, politics or even literature. The Importance of Being Earnest might be a more fitting title — if only another Irish writer hadn’t already used it.

But what’s lost from Rooney’s writing — not least the first-person insights — is partially offset by a strong lead turn by Oliver and astute direction from Lenny Abrahamson (Room), who brings a keen eye to the intimate bedroom scenes and to coastal vistas when the story shifts briefly to Croatia.

Fans of Normal People will find this new series to be no less handsomely made or watchable. Others may find it difficult to commit to 12 episodes in the company of this largely unappealing bunch. An actual conversation with friends might well be more fun.

★★★☆☆

On BBC3 and iPlayer from May 15 at 10pm in the UK; on Hulu in the US