What started out as a column in The New York Times, turned into a podcast, and is now followed by a highly watched television show. Modern Love takes its readers, listeners, and viewers through many different stories and forms of romance.
The show currently showcases eight different tales in its first season on Amazon Prime. Each episode highlights both traditional and non-traditional types of “love” within the duration of an hour.
Written and directed by John Carney, the show includes many well-known actors and actresses. Tina Fey (Mean Girls, Saturday Night Live) makes an appearance as a wife finding a lack of love in her marriage. Julia Garner (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, “Ozark”) portrays a young lady who finds comfort in a coworker who wants to be more than a fatherly figure.
With each episode having various storylines, the show pulls at the strings of the viewer’s heart. The show is seemingly relatable to people of all ages and all backgrounds. PV senior Sunny Wolfe said, “The show helped me understand how love is shown through different people’s perspectives and I resonated with some of the characters.”
One of the more “relatable” episodes is the third episode of the show, in which mental illness is showcased. Anne Hathaway (“The Devil Wears Prada”, “The Princess Diaries”) plays a young woman who struggles with bipolar disorder and depression. “I really thought the episode shed an interesting point on a common mental disorder,” said Wolfe.
Hathaway nailed the role showing the difference between manic and depressed episodes throughout her life. She showed the manic ultra-highs and the depressive ultra-lows. She does not share her illness until mid-episode with one of her coworkers. The episode shows how many people have underlying issues that play a role in the ability to maintain a relationship.
During the seventh episode, the love is shown through a gay couple in search of a child to adopt. When a mother is found for the two to adopt from, the couple soon realizes they will have to take the young girl in. The episode presents not only love between the couple, but the love between the mother and baby, and just how easy it is to form a bond with a complete stranger.
Chloe Grieg, a PV graduate shared that show was very deep, “I really felt as though I was in the shoes of each character, I felt all types of emotion.” The actors take on their roles as if they were living out these relationships themselves. The show takes on the streets of New York and the cast shows a bond to not only their characters but the city itself.
The heartfelt, raw emotion portrayed through the show left viewers looking for a second season. With a weekly column of real-life stories to choose from, the observers look forward to another season filled with warmth and love in its purest form.
