Thursday, July 12, 2018

Finding Release or Getting Trapped in Kiss Me First.


So, has there ever been something so traumatizing, something that’s rocked your world that you wanted to go into another world to, if not take away the trauma or pain, but make you forget…even if it’s just for a bit?  Netflix’s new series, Kiss Me First, goes there.

Based on the book of the same title by Lottie Moggach, we open to the funeral of Leila Evans’ (Tallulah Haddon) mom.  The thing is, Leila’s the only one there.  Leila’s got a secret that’s really in her best interest to keep.  To make matters worse, Leila’s essentially an orphan now, forcing her to get her first job cleaning at a restaurant when the owner has pity on her.  When she’s not working, Leila’s a gamer on the online game, Azana as the character, Shadowfax.

She has friends she connects with while gaming but has never met in person until she has to take in a roommate to keep her mom’s pad…enter Adrian Palmer (Matthew Beard), a wanna-be actor that spouts off movie quotes at random, but he’s mainly a freeloader.

On one of her gaming seshes, Leila meets Mania, immediately falling in online lust…until Mania finds her in real-life.  Tess’s her name, and she comes with A LOT of baggage.  Even then, everything’s copasetic…until life and an online predator starts bumping off friends online that crosses over into real-world.

Kiss is a loaded movie with multiple layers covering everything from being bi to escapism to addiction to euthanasia to the lines between reality and fantasy blurring.  I’m going to take these topics in regards to real world instead of in regards to the movie for those of you, who might give it a check, which you should.

Being gay or bi should be a non-issue these days, but, for some reason, it still freaking is.  People are the way they are, no matter how many shrinks, no matter how many “reprogramming” workshops professionals try to cram down throats.

I asked at the beginning if there was something traumatic that’s happened to you.  God knows there’s a buttload of stuff I wish I could unsee in my life.  Growing up, I did everything I could to escape those demons.  Thankfully, drugs wasn’t one of the things I’ve tried short from drinking, but porn, stealing, doing stupid stunts just to tempt death, yeah, I’ve done it.

I don’t have any personal stories about euthanasia, but I’ve done research.  Surprisingly, it’s legal in 10 countries, and 8 states in the US.  Otherwise, it’s done behind closed doors.

Addiction and the blurring of the reality/fantasy lines “could” go hand-in-hand.  Nowadays, whether gaming’s an addiction’s a hot topic.  Some say it expands the imagination, gives children the opportunity to work collaboratively, and sharpens cognitive skills while the other side of the coin say it becomes an addiction when every day “need to do” things get pushed to the back burner for said gaming.  Of course, we’ve all heard the school shooters attribute their skills to the first-person shooters that’ve been around since the 90s, blurring the reality/fantasy line.  The argument there’s that, yes, the amount of school shootings seems to be rising, but the number of shootings that could be contributed to these games compared to the population of players of these games as a whole is small.

Wow, I’m tired.  Like I said, there’s a lot going on with Kiss.  I’m interested to check the book out now to see if it fills in things we might’ve missed with this first season.  Then again, it might just be one of those repeat watches to get everything.

Anyway, give it a go.

Be good to each other.

-J-

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