With the precedent of being based on a book that has become one of those readings to work at the institute, Atresplayer Premium premieres today Sunday ‘The age of anger’, miniseries that adapts the homonymous novel by Nando López.
Starring Manu Ríos in the role of Marcos, the premise is based on the violent death of a man at the hands, apparently of his son. Soon all the questions revolve around what could have happened so that a seemingly “normal” and popular boy could commit this crime.
Thus, the series written by Juanma Ruiz de Cordoba and Lucia Carballal (‘Vis a Vis: el Oasis’) jumps between points of view to try to discover what could have happened, trying to explore and delve into the nooks and crannies and complexities of adolescent anguish and affectivity.
A broken narrative
Beyond a small prologue to get us the bug, the series is not interested in getting into intrigues. On the contrary, the script is not separated from the million dollar question: who is Marcos and his circumstances that we explore through the point of view of his friends. More specifically, in this first episode, through Sandra (Amaia Aberasturi).
‘The age of anger’ moves following the characteristic patterns of the genre in which it is located—including that request to the viewer to ignore the age appearance of the actors— to unfold before our eyes a puzzle made up of somewhat unconnected pictures.
It is in this narration, in the gathering and stringing together of these pictures, that fiction is most lost, that fails to function on the most important level: the emotional. To give an example, in the middle of the episode there is a conversation in which Sandra comments on how her friendship cooled down after a tragedy. It’s a scene that makes some sense but is built on such shaky foundations that it doesn’t matter.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the scenes per se, but put together, the assembly fails to give the puzzle enough coherence what you are proposing. A feeling of defragmentation that plays a little against.
All this causes a lack of emotional anchorage that weighs down a series that, because of that, is dispersed. You finish watching the first episode and you don’t know exactly what is being told, what is being discussed in these minutes.
In short, ‘The age of anger’ start without knowing very well what it is. On paper, it’s a teen drama with a touch of a thriller. But the execution is disjointed.