PEN15
2019
Original language: English
- comedy
The story
Middle school as it really happened. Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle star in this adult comedy, playing versions of themselves as thirteen-year-old outcasts in the year 2000, surrounded by actual thirteen-year-olds, where the best day of your life can turn into your worst with the stroke of a gel pen.
What it’s like
Hand-held, close-in camera work and a deliberately period-correct palette of frosted pinks, lime greens and washed-out fluorescent school hallways give PEN15 the feel of a found home video that somehow got a budget. The look is 2000 to the bone: flip phones, butterfly clips, AIM chat bubbles, a Limp Bizkit-era soundtrack, and classroom light that is always a little too bright and a little too flat. Its vibe is awkward, tender and cringe-sharp, the kind of sitting-with-your-own-past feeling best suited to a late-night binge or a rewatch when you want to laugh and wince at once. Episodes run brisk, around twenty-odd minutes, with sharp jumps between hilarious and humiliating, and the emotional register is warm underneath the embarrassment. The central arc follows two outsider best friends slowly learning that growing up hurts and that loyalty can be tested by a single bad afternoon. Content is frank: sexual content and crude talk about bodies and puberty appear often, with some graphic nudity and a few moments of peer cruelty, but no real violence. It is for adults who enjoy sharp, uncomfortable comedy about adolescence and want something that feels honest rather than nostalgic.
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