A juicy dollop of Bits

Because sometimes the reccs deserve their own letter

I was on a personal project in January to watch lots of telly, facilitated by a) stomach flu and b) so much great stuff dropping in the last 6 weeks. January used to be known as “dump month”, but this is definitely no longer the case. (I’m desperate for a solo trip to the cinema to see Poor Things!)

I wrote last week for the paid subs about Griselda, a brilliant, sometime fictionalised re-telling of the Colombian narca Griselda Blanco, aka The Godmother, who basically controlled cocaine trafficking into Miami in the 70s and 80s, played with aplomb by Sofía Vergara. I read it whilst reading Narcas by Deborah Bonello, a non-fiction book about the women secretly powering Latin America’s drug cartels and I hard recommend the combo.

I failed to connect with nutty Norwegian film Sick of Myself (too on the nose for me, fans of Triangle of Sadness will enjoy), Anatomy of a Scandal (very ‘me’ on paper but found it too slow) or even May December, although I remember vividly the story from 1997, because I somehow got my mitts on The National Enquirer. Given that the story is all about exploitation, I have to say it leaves a sour taste that the movie makers didn’t speak to Vili Fualaau first.

But there were 3 things I did watch (as well as Griselda) that filled me to the absolute brim. Firstly, How To Have Sex, written and directed by Molly Manning Walker. I was mesmerised for every.single.second of this film, which I think is relatively rare; to not have your attention drift for even a moment. It’s about three teenage girls who head to Malia the summer after their GCSEs to get extremely drunk and shag. Critics of ‘Booze Britain’ may shudder (there’s an on-stage drinking game which makes me feel every inch my 36 years) but it’s so immediately evocative: loud, vulgar and joyful with these arresting moments of tenderness and confusion.

The three leads are so well-cast, particularly Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara (who unlike most 20-somethings cast as 16-year-olds, actually looks and feels 16) and Shaun Thomas, as Badger. It’s full of magnetic quiet moments, thanks to Tara’s beautifully mercurial face and it doesn’t do that Euphoria/ Sex Education thing where everyone is chicer or more eloquent than they’d actually be as teenagers. There’s a place for that, but there’s also a place for teenagers failing to articulate their feelings, which this film does in a way that’s truly beautiful.

The film explores the greyer areas of consent, where it’s less of a dramatic thing with sharp edges and more of a uneasy soft-focus, “did they…? “was that….?” This is the first feature from Manning Walker - I then fell down a Google hole and read that she shot Scrapper, which also looks wonderful. Here’s a great interview with the director of Scrapper, incidentally, on making deliberately joyful working-class stories and how you build rapport with a young lead.

Secondly, the new adaptation of One Day, David Nicholls’ cult sliding-doors novel from 2003, that I must have read four? five? times and is one of my favourite contemporary novels. I went to a screening of the first 3 episodes (there are 14 in total) last night and the whole series drops on Netflix tomorrow. Now, I always quite liked the much maligned 2011 film - I appear to be the only person who did - but in the few episodes I have seen of the new series, it blows it out the water. The casting is just perfect.

I was with one of my best friends who works in film and she was like (and she doesn’t appear to be alone) “I knew it would be good” - what with the leads being Leo Woodall of White Lotus and Ambika Mod of This Is Going To Hurt and the writer being Nicole Taylor who wrote Three Girls - “but I can’t quite believe it’s this good.” I also cannot under-emphasise the joy of various late 80s/ early 90s fashion/objects, not least the hamburger phone. I’m going to re-read the book for the fifth? sixth? time asap.

The last thing to leave me saucer-eyed this week was Disappeared: Mexico’s Missing 43 about the students who disappeared in Mexico, in 2014. There are over 111,000 long-term missing in Mexico (compared to 4,000 in the UK.) Most of these are due to the drug cartels. And this story is an example of how the federal govt and cartels are in cahoots. The people who made the boys disappear, were the ones now looking for them. I watched it with my hands clenched: why, why, why? Why these innocent 18-year-old-boys, who were nothing to do with anything, their mothers weeping on camera? Particularly fascinating was the Argentine forensic psychologist, who has the somewhat grisly job of identifying unmarked graves.

Away from the telly, I really enjoyed Ann Friedman’s 10-part serialised essay, which has been publishing whilst she’s on maternity leave. In the final segment, on considering her new life, she writes: “There is a difference between grief and regret”. I felt an enormous whoosh of relief reading that - I grieve my past freedom(s) but I don’t regret the reason for their loss - that comes from someone articulating someone you could not.

Speaking of motherhood and its perception, this FT article ‘What ‘sad mum lit’ doesn’t say about parenthood’ was recommended to me recently in the comment section and I’m so grateful for the pointer. On the inherent tension of externalising motherhood, Emma Jacobs writes:

“I find myself hankering for a more joyful portrayal of parenting. The problem is that describing the virtues of kids risks appearing Pollyanna-ish or proselytising. There are few things more annoying than a tone-deaf parent trying to convert a non-believer — or worse, someone struggling to have children.”

Elle Cordova’s account is my new happy place on Instagram. Her video of the fonts hanging out is as random as it is accurate. How could Garamond be anyone else?

Thanks also to The New York Times for getting me hooked on the date-night videos of a couple called The Tucketts. I’m not even on TikTok* and yet I can’t get enough of this man in his tucked-in polo-shirt and a sockless soft shoe earnestly telling his wife, “you look fire, Pookie”. Slay, babe.

I found this newsletter from former Wall St Journal columnist Anne Kadet ‘I wear the same thing every day and I love it!’ so joyful. I love hearing unexpected stories of liberation through clothes - where having very few clothes can feel as creatively galvanising as having many.

And bravo to E Jean from Ask E Jean. Justice, finally, served.

Smell you later! Oh and book lovers, don’t despair - I have lots of great books coming up for your asap.

*Can I even say I’m not on TikTok if I’m regularly consuming the videos embedded in news articles on my laptop?