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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