We get really frustrated when shows that don’t need to have a jumbled timeline go ahead and jumble it anyway, just for dramatic effect. It’s either done because they don’t have faith in telling their story in a linear way or there is a need to stretch a story over more episodes than are really needed to tell that story. A new Spanish drama on Netflix is guilty of this, but the story it tells might be important enough to override these frustrations.
Opening Shot: A teenage girl walks up to the gate of her high school, carrying a rolled up banner.
The Gist: The teen, 17-year-old Alma (Nicole Wallace), puts the banner over the fence opening, and it attracts the attention of the students walking around both the high school and the adjacent middle school, as well as administrators. The banner says, “BEWARE! A RAPIST IS HIDING IN THERE!”
We see someone posting to an Instagram account with a bunch of hashtags, including “#survivor” and “#raisingvoices.” “This is me before I was raped,” she writes in the caption.
Four months earlier, in January 2018, we see Alma not paying attention in history class. It’s not exactly the first time that her teacher notices that she’s not participating. And, even among her classmates, Alma doesn’t have the most sterling reputation; she seems to get into trouble a lot. When Alberto (Gabriel Guevara), the boyfriend of Alma’s friend Nata (Aicha Villaverde) calls Alma a “bitch,” Nata has to remind him that she’s her friend.
Alma’s teacher and an administrator confront her and ask her if she’s smoking weed on campus; she says it’s just a cigarette. She then sees her friend Hernan getting hassled by two older guys that he seems to be friends with.
We intercut the scenes of Alma in school with ones of her at a police station, reporting her rape to authorities. Her mother (Ruth Díaz) is there for support. She’s questioned by a detective about an Instagram account that has the post “this is me before I was raped.”
But before the attack, we see that Alma pretends that she’s studying, but what she’s really doing is going to the mall with her friend Greta (Clara Galle), where they arrive just in time to see Nata have yet another blowup fight with Antonio. While they try to talk her down, Alma realizes the weed she smoked when she visited with her usual dealer earlier was stronger than she realized.
Alma’s father (Eloy Azorín) is concerned that she’s not studying enough and not getting enough sleep, and his concerns are validated when he and Alma’s mother are called into school and told that Alma is failing most of her classes. Feeling that Alma lied to them about how she’s doing and how much she’s smoking, they ground her. But by the end of the week, she’s ready to sneak out and go to a party with Greta. When she misses the bus, though, she’s picked up by the same guys that were giving Hernan a hard time.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Raising Voices (Original title: Ni una más), is based on a novel by Miguel Sáez Carral, who also co-wrote the series. It certainly has a Euphoria vibe, though it might be more of a “lite” version of that show, despite the heavy subject matter.
Our Take: The first episode of Raising Voices is a little confusing in that we’re not sure what part of the story Carral and his co-writer, Isa Sánchez, are trying to set up. It starts off with a bang, of course, with Alma putting up that incendiary banner for everyone in her school to see. But then the first episode meanders between Alma being questioned about her assault and scenes of her being a typical teenager: She hangs out with friends and has conflict with her parents.
There seems to be a reason for us to see what Alma, via the anonymous IG account set up, was “me before I was raped.” There’s nothing really being shown in the first episode to indicate what that might be. She’s not the greatest student, and she smokes a little weed. Her dad doesn’t seem to be happy that she has no plan for what’s next if she manages to graduate.
We also see the depth of her friendship with Greta and Nata, especially when the three of them sleep over Greta’s place and Nata brings her mom’s massive red dildo. The montage of the three of them goofing around in their undies while holding the sex toy is supposed to speak to how close they are with each other, and a montage of moments over the years when Greta and Alma shared kisses is supposed to speak to how the bond is perhaps more than just friendship. But it doesn’t really tell us much about where the story is going to go after Alma is assaulted.
This is one of those cases where we just wished the story was told in a more linear fashion. It’s a story that has the potential to have high emotional impact, as we are pretty sure that Alma going public about her assault and pointing fingers at someone at her school is going to make her subject to all sorts of cruel victim-blaming, slut-shaming, and other manners of character assassination that will add to her trauma.
Perhaps that’s what the first episode is setting up. Given the fact that she’s had some run-ins with students and administration in the past, she’s not the greatest student, and she’s on her parents’ bad side, that may end up making things worse for her as she tries to go public about being sexually assaulted. But that could have been accomplished with more of a linear storytelling track, and more evidence that Alma is more than just a meh student who smokes a bit and wears sweats all the time.
Sex and Skin: Nothing besides the dildo scene in the first episode, but as the situation darkens, we’ll likely see more of both.
Parting Shot: After Alma misses the bus, she’s sitting in a bus shelter during a downpour. The friends of Hernan who hassled him, who seem to know Alma, pick her up. We see the empty bus shelter as the credits roll.
Sleeper Star: There is something going on between Alma and Clara Galle’s character Greta that has an influence over what happens next, but we’re not sure what yet.
Most Pilot-y Line: When Alma’s parents confront her about her grades, they ask if she’s taking drugs. When they ask about cocaine, Alma reflexively says she’d have to save up for a long time for a gram of coke. Her mom responds, “You know how much it costs?” Why are parents in shows like this written to be so clueless?
Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re tentatively recommending Raising Voices because the story of what goes on with Alma and her friends after Alma is sexually assaulted is an important one to tell. But we wonder if the show’s fractured storytelling and languid pacing is going to hold viewers’ attention long enough for that story to make any impact.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
