I’ve long accepted that I have a soft spot for YA dramas, from the silly to the serious – and Amazon Prime’s Sterling Point may just have nabbed the top spot.
I was immediately reeled in when I saw that not only was it an original series (a breath of fresh air in a sea of IP), but it was also from creator Megan Park, the mastermind behind the emotional, witty hit, My Old Ass, starring Aubrey Plaza.
The eight-part drama follows 17-year-old Annie (Ella Rubin), the type-A eldest daughter who parents her father and brother and expects nothing but excellence from herself.
We quickly learn that she and her brother Connor (Keen Ruffalo) were adopted at birth, but their mother died shortly after, and they were raised in New York by their father Steven (Jay Duplass).
But when their maternal grandfather, Gordon, whom they’ve never met, dies, his will states that they have a claim to his land in Canada, in an area called Muskoka.
Stuck in a rut, and determined to reconnect with the mother she never knew and the place she loved, Annie packs her bags and sneaks away to spend her summer uncovering the side of the family she never got to know.
But curiosity killed the cat. Her whole life is turned upside down when she discovers a sister she never knew she had, and a whole history hidden from her.
I won’t say any more than that, as this is the type of show you want to relish in the twists and turns of. I mean, it’s not number one on Prime worldwide for nothing.
What made the series all the more compelling, beyond the layered plot, however, was the characters and the way they interacted with each other.
Nearly every time I switch on a new teen or young adult show, my biggest gripe is almost always the dialogue – and the surface-level, cringeworthy discussions the young Gen Zers are having.
The most obvious culprit of this is the Netflix show Ginny and Georgia, which has more facepalm-worthy moments than fingers on my hand.
XO, Kitty’s dialogue is as hilarious as it is bad; Heartstopper may as well hit you over the head with its sometimes contrived chatter, and The Summer I Turned Pretty, although not as egregious, had its moment of eye-roll-worthy dialogue.
Jeremiah was often at the scene of the crime.
Gen Z are not just looking to pick fights over pronouns or talk in ‘internet speak’ to spook their older relatives. Also, many of these shows miss just how sarcastic this generation is, often leaning full throttle into sickening sincerity.
Although often I can push past the initial annoyance, sometimes it’s enough to take me out of the moment and think ‘a real human wouldn’t say this’.
Yet, Sterling Point seems to have cracked it.From the moment Annie lands at Sterling Point and meets the gang of characters we’ll be following for the rest of the season – it all feels… natural.
There’s a lovely chemistry between her and estranged sister Ramona (Amelie Hoeferle), and the rest of the locals, Oona (Bo Bragason), Ellis (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie) and Sully (Nikko Angelo Hinayo), all seem as though they’ve known each other for years.
What’s more, they all have unique personalities, from the outgoing cake decorator Sully to the reserved and moody Ramona.
There’s sharp-witted back-and-forth; they all have the sensibilities of forward-thinking young people without spelling it out, and many times you feel like a fly on the wall of an actual conversation.
I’m not alone in feeling this way. One clip, which perfectly illustrates what I mean, has been going viral. In the scene, Annie is gossiping about her love life with Ramona – and it’s filled with all the tongue-tripping whimsy one has relating a perfect first kiss.
(If you’re looking to avoid spoilers, I’d proceed with caution).
Megan herself has spoken about how important creating believable dialogue was in the creative process, giving her cast free rein to play around with the script as well.
Speaking to Yahoo, Megan admitted ‘it kills me when it feels like it’s not exactly how a real human being would talk’. Me too, Megan, me too.
She continued: ‘I give the actors a lot of freedom. You know what the scene’s about. You know your character. If you wouldn’t say it that way, say it how you feel like your character would say it.
‘Or if … I made a millennial joke, make it a Gen Z joke. … I really want them to weigh in on all of that every step of the way.
‘But also, you don’t want it to seem like you’re trying to be trendy at the same time; you just want it to feel like normal people talking.;
What resonates most with Megan’s approach is shying away from making it too ‘trendy’, a pitfall for many shows which quickly feel outdated.
My only regret is that the show isn’t longer, but I’ll settle for what we’ve been given.
All this to say, screenwriters take note! This is how it’s done. Now, I’m locked in and ready for series two.
Sterling Point is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now.
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