City on fire, the review: Apple TV+ also has its own teen drama

Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage after The OC and Gossip Girl return to the teen drama with City on Fire, starring Wyatt Oleff, Chase Sui Wonders, Jemima Kirke, Nico Tortorella, Ashley Zukerman and John Cameron Mitchell, from May 12 on Apple TV+ by appointment weekly.

The young share was missing on Apple Tv+ and who better than the creators of The O.C. e Gossip Girl Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage to try to tell a bildungsroman that is also a hymn to the New York summer and an analysis of the post traumatic stress disorder of 9/11? Starting from the novel of the same name by Garth Risk Hallberg, the two authors have basted Burning city, from May 12 on Apple TV + with a weekly appointment. A tale as adolescent as young adult who wants to try to tell the trauma of a generation: will he have succeeded? Let’s find out in our review of the serie.

The trauma of a generation

Quell’September 11, 2001 it has not only represented a watershed in modern history with a capital S but also something to which the audiovisual continues to return because it has enormously marked American culture and society in its foundations and in its (apparent) certainties, which have since collapsed permanently and dispersed into the ether. It is along these lines that the story of Burning city, set on July 4, 2003 (therefore two years after the double attack on the Twin Towers). Wyatt Oleff plays Charlie, a boy who goes to therapy in the City after losing his father in that terrible tragedy. On those streets he meets Samantha (Chase Sui Wonders), an apparent free spirit who lives life on her own terms and whom Charlie instinctively admires and falls in love with. However, his idyll does not last long because another ominous date will undermine the teenager’s memory: the evening of the celebrations for theIndependence Day, in Central Park, Sam is the victim of an attack but she was alone and there are no witnesses or proof of what happened. Charlie makes it his life’s mission to uncover the truth about that night, while various stories and possible culprits orbit her figure.

All are suspects

There are many possible suspects in the case of Samantha, joining the mystery al teen drama as already done in Gossip Girl, in addition to the discourse on social inequality and class struggle: if there it was necessary to discover the identity of the blogger, here it is a question of revealing who is behind the attack on the girl. A whodunit in which equally important are the storyline of the various nucleuses involved, which will intertwine in a somewhat unexpected and somewhat predictable way, reminding us how family secrets are often harmful, especially if kept years later. Captaining the “adults” we find Jemima Kirke, who once again after Conversations with Friends passes to the other side of the fence, along with Ashley Zukerman, recently seen ne The lost symbolprequel series of Da Vinci’s code. The two play a couple in crisis whose life is turned upside down not only by the assault as it happens in front of the building where they are having the annual 4th of July party, together with their wealthy Upper East Side New York family, but also by the return into their life of her brother, William (a newfound Nico Tortorella that many have loved in Younger). The latter is a troubled young adult with a past of addictions and with a relationship in the making with Mercer (the excellent discovery Xavier Clyde), a professor and aspiring writer in the Big Apple. Billy was also the frontman of a New York musical underground band – which Sam helped found, venerates and makes Charlie discover – who decides to do a surprise reunion concert on the other side of town that very night.

Dysfunctional families

Those who stage City in flames are a series of many small fires (just like the novel and series of the same name) scattered around the city that never sleeps, literal and metaphorical, which will be another reason for the investigation for the police and for the protagonists, above all Charlie, as he tries to unravel the skein of the life of Sam, his friendships and his relationships outside of theirs. The various protagonists – the wealthy family, the group of friends of the girl who is also the underground band – will have to confront and come to terms with their past, which inevitably affects their present, just like the trauma of 11 September which from the Red string of the PTSD that all the characters suffer and carry with them every day. A group of characters who show how trauma cannot always be overcome because it has brought down all one’s certainties starting from simple everyday life. The writing of Josh Schwartz e Stephanie Savage confirms that he knows how to expertly handle words and play with them, while the dynamic direction of Jesse Peretz is all about bringing out the freshest and most shrewd aspect of the story. The neon photography, the punk and rock soundtrack, the colorful and graphically captivating acronym that brings out the moderns american graffiti, are all elements aimed at bringing out the young identity of the serial, together with the rebellious will of a generation. It doesn’t totally succeed but it still offers an entertainment and topical product.