“Everything I Know About Love”

Pollyanna Roberts, Deputy Editor, reviews Dolly Alderton’s acclaimed memoir adaptation

EVERYTHING I Know About Love was released in June 2022, based on the memoir of the same title by Dolly Alderton. It follows the lives of childhood best friends Maggie (Emma Appleton) and Birdy (Bel Powley), as freshly graduated young women on the cusp of adulthood. They house share with two other girls, Nell (Marli Siu) and Amara (Aliyah Odoffin), in the heart of Camden in 2012. As a duo, they must navigate love, sex, and growing up, while maintaining their own relationship.

When you meet your soulmate at a young age, it seems inevitable that you will grow apart. Maggie and Birdy spent their formative years growing together and even went to the same university. Maggie is the epitome of a free spirit, she revels in her youth and wants to experience everything, everywhere all at once. For her, chasing youth is enough to sustain her, even if everyone around her is starting to settle in their lives. Whereas Birdy has always been the quieter of the two, tranquil and content. Her style is sweeter and more conservative, she is inexperienced and, arguably, stuck behind Maggie’s shadow. After they leave the sanctuary of university life, they face the real world head on, and this is where they begin to come into their own. Or at least attempt to.

FUTURAMA is undoubtedly one of the greatest cartoons ever made. Created by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, the show goes beyond their work on The Simpsons and achieves a greater depth. While I could talk for hours about the creativity of Futurama, from inventing a new language to developing robot culture, the magic of this show is found in the main characters and each of their stories. Phillip J. Fry is the main character of the show and is supported by Turanga Leela, a one-eyed (alien) and Bender, a bending robot. Each of these characters, while written to be comedic, possess their own personal tragedies.

Most prominently, Fry, a boy who doesn’t fit in or enjoy his life in the 20th century gets cryogenically frozen and finds himself in the 30th century. Despite now fitting in and living in his sci-fi fantasy which he was previously only able to experience through computer games, he is lonely and longs for his old life. Leela similarly finds herself alone. Orphaned

Maggie, a drama graduate, is a hopeless romantic who wants love and affection, but never from the right men. In the pilot she meets Street, a stereotypical grungy musician who only has time for his guitar, his cigarette and occasional sex. Their ‘meet cute’ on a random train is very Before Sunrise (bar the fact Street is no Ethan Hawke), and after sharing a passionate kiss, we’re left wondering if they will meet again. They do. If we ignore the fact he didn’t initially know who she was, it could be the start of a very romantic story line. Yet, Street really does not deliver on that front. Maggie has chased this romantic idea of ‘destiny’ and placed it in the unwilling hands of a guy in a band who really could not care less. As an audience, we, like Maggie, are witnessing this unsatisfying situationship alongside the blossoming relationship between Birdy and Nathan (who happens to be Street’s roommate). Comically juxtaposing Maggie’s situ- ation, Birdy falls madly in love with Nathan, the first man she ever dates. He is charming, loving, and communicative, and even gets a giant teddy to celebrate their first month of being girlfriend and boyfriend. As Birdy falls deeper into her feelings for Nathan, she begins to distance herself from Maggie. Maggie, unsatisfied with her own love life, wants to fall into the arms of Birdy and be with her, but she is always with Nathan. Throughout her relationship with Maggie, it seems that Birdy is the follower, dependent on Maggie for advice and influence. Yet, when push comes to shove, and Maggie’s façade does indeed shatter, we realise that it is Maggie who is actually completely dependent on Birdy. Maggie’s naivety is further accentuated in the final episode, where she sits with her mum in the car. Their intimate conversation illustrates just how scary growing up is, and honestly makes you just want to hug someone you love. It reminded me of Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, and the relationship between Lady Bird and her mother, which is strained and frustrating but overflowing with so much love that it drowns them. This last scene had me bawling, as Maggie’s mum tells her all about love. She explains how the world can feel like a war zone when you’re older and, therefore, you should be with someone who brings you peace and makes you laugh, not someone who makes it more difficult. For Maggie, this person is Birdy.

As a show, it is pure 2010s nostalgia,