# Normal People (2020) Review: Love in the Unsaid > Normal People adapts Sally Rooney's novel into 12 intimate episodes about two young people in Ireland, lifted by Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones's remarkable pairing. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/normal-people-review/ Published: 2026-07-25 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 4/5 ## Verdict Yes. It is one of the most intimate love stories on television, best for viewers who value mood and performance over plot and can accept its circling miscommunications. ## Is Normal People worth watching? **Yes. Normal People is a tender, precisely observed drama about first love and the damage of not saying what you feel, with two lead performances of rare intimacy.** Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones make every glance and silence count, and the direction trusts those silences to carry the story. The reservation is structural: the relationship's repeated breakdowns rely on miscommunication that some viewers will find more frustrating than moving, particularly in the second half. ## What is Normal People about? Connell and Marianne go to the same secondary school in a small town in the west of Ireland. He is popular, a gifted student and a star of the school football team, and his mother cleans Marianne's family's large house. She is clever, sharp-tongued and treated as an outsider by their classmates. The two begin a secret relationship, and over the following years, through school and on to Trinity College Dublin, they drift together and apart, each shaped by the other and by the class, family and insecurity that neither can quite name. [Normal People](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/normal-people/) is adapted from Sally Rooney's novel, with scripts co-written by Rooney, and made for BBC Three and Hulu. Lenny Abrahamson directs the first half of the series and Hettie Macdonald the second. [Paul Mescal](https://celluloidscore.com/stars/europe/ireland/paul-mescal/) plays Connell and Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Marianne. This review covers the complete series: 12 episodes of roughly half an hour, and the story is finished. ## Two performances made of small moments The series lives almost entirely on its leads. Mescal gives Connell a guarded, watchful sensitivity, a young man who cares deeply what others think and who struggles to put feeling into words. His performance is full of tiny, telling gestures: a jaw tightening, a glance away, a pause before an answer. Edgar-Jones matches him as Marianne, defiant on the surface and far more fragile beneath, and she charts the character's shifting self-worth across years with remarkable control. Their chemistry is electric, but what makes it special is how specific it is. The pair capture the awkwardness, tenderness and power imbalances of a first serious relationship with a truthfulness that few screen romances attempt. ## Intimacy handled with care Normal People was widely noted for its sex scenes, which are frank, unhurried and choreographed with an intimacy coordinator. They are not decorative: the series uses physical closeness to show what the characters cannot say, and the scenes are as much about consent, trust and vulnerability as desire. The effect is candid without being exploitative. The direction is quiet and patient. Abrahamson favours close-ups, natural light and long, unbroken moments, and the editing allows pauses to breathe. The half-hour episode format suits the material, delivering chapters of a relationship rather than cliffhangers. ## Where the silences start to grate The same restraint that makes the series so affecting can also feel limiting. Much of the drama comes from the leads failing to communicate at crucial moments, and by the later episodes that pattern risks feeling repetitive. The university chapters also introduce secondary characters and relationships that are thinly sketched next to the central pair. Some viewers will find the story's slow, circling rhythm hypnotic; others will want it to move forward faster. ## Who should watch Normal People? It suits viewers who love character-driven [drama](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/drama/), literary adaptations and quiet, adult romance. It contains frequent explicit sex and nudity and deals with depression, anxiety, grief and emotional abuse, so it is firmly for mature audiences. Twelve half-hour episodes make it an easy series to finish in a weekend, though its emotional weight rewards spacing it out. If you enjoy it, try these next: - [Fleabag](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/fleabag-review/), for another British series about intimacy, loneliness and the gap between what people feel and what they say. - [I May Destroy You](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/i-may-destroy-you-review/), for a bolder, more confrontational drama about sex, consent and young adulthood. - [Derry Girls](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/derry-girls-review/), for a much funnier portrait of growing up on the island of Ireland. ## The verdict Normal People is a beautifully acted and sensitively directed drama about love, class and self-worth, carried by two performances that made its leads stars. Its reliance on miscommunication tests patience in the later episodes, but as a portrait of a first relationship, it is hard to beat. **Rating: 4/5** ## Related title - [Normal People (2020)](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/normal-people/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)