Featured image courtesy of IMDb.

HBOMax’s original series Love Life is fun, heartwarming and hilarious—but still leaves a lot to be desired.

Starring Anna Kendrick, the series follows character Darby Carter as she navigates her, well, love life. Throughout the series, which spans around a decade of her life, she dates and breaks up with several men, and through this, she is able to discover herself and what she wants out of life. At first glance, this setup could be risky. Is this just a tale of a woman desperately looking for true love? Luckily, it is not. Ultimately, you could say that Darby falls in love with herself.

Darby as a character can be a bit annoying. At times, she acts extremely high-and-mighty. This can be seen especially with her mother Claudia, who Darby treats as more of a nuisance than anything for most of the series. It is not clear if this trait of Darby’s is intentional of the writers or just simply bad character construction. 

However, the relationships Darby has with her friends, boyfriends, and family lead to very interesting and real situations. Love Life does not hold back in showing difficult situations. It’s never gratuitous, it is simply reflective of real life situations. Because of this, some scenes can be triggering for those who have experienced situations, such as a verbally abusive relationship or the drug addiction of a family member. 

The side characters are all extremely interesting and have fleshed out stories that don’t always revolve around Darby. The supporting cast includes smaller actors such as Peter Vack, known for his role in Mozart in the Jungle, and Zoë Chao of Living with Yourself.

The ending of the season, this season being the only one that will follow Darby’s life, is lackluster. The last episode could even be considered boring compared to the rest of the show. It almost felt like the writers left the story open for another season focused on Darby, but interestingly, that is not the case.

Season 2, which the show has been renewed for, will focus on a character that was in the first season, although which character that is is yet to be known. Because of the connection to Darby, she will supposedly occasionally appear throughout the season. This seems like a good decision, as it will keep the story fresh while still having connections to the past season. Hopefully, season 2 can resolve some issues that the finale of the first season left. 

Overall, this show is the type to make you cry, either from sadness or laughing too hard. It is a wild ride, and while the ending isn’t the best, the lead up to the end makes up for it. Spinnaker rates Love Life 3.5/5 sails.

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