“Everything I Know About Love” is a platonic love story as full of longing and heartbreak as any romance. The series adaptation of Dolly Alderton’s best-selling memoir charts the long-intertwined stories of Maggie (Emma Appleton, “Traitors”) and Birdy (Bel Powley, “The Morning Show”), 20-something childhood sweethearts who move to London together alongside their college pals Nell (Marli Siu, “Alex Rider”) and Amara (Aliyah Odoffin, “Better Get Better”).
Initially, things go exactly as planned. The foursome have raucous nights out, bonding over pints and more illicit substances, and make a home for themselves in their Camden flat. Then Birdy gets a boyfriend. Though she claims that having a partner won’t change anything, her oldest friend remains unconvinced. “That’s only a thing people say when everything’s changing,” Maggie observes.
Maggie does her best to put on a brave face and muster up convincingish enthusiasm for her BFF, but as Birdy falls deeper and deeper for her bland beau, Maggie knows her soulmate is drifting further and further away. Watching their relationship devolve feels like watching a ship gradually sink. Its inevitability doesn’t make it any less devastating. “You have always been my most important person,” Maggie tells Birdy, who can only offer, “I don’t know if we should be that to each other anymore.”
Susanna Fogel’s “Life Partners” and Sophie Hyde’s “Animals,” released in 2014 and 2019, respectively, also grapple with the toll romantic love takes on female friendships. No other titles come to mind despite it being such a common issue — and that’s probably because so few projects focus on female friendship, period.
Alderton adapted her memoir for the small screen, making revisions along the way. “Criticism of the book — that I fully accept — is that it was very white,” she told The New York Times. Making the series “semi-fictional” opened up narrative possibilities, leading to the inclusion of a woman of color, Amara, among the show’s four leads, and conversations grappling with race. As Amara tells Maggie at one point, “I love you, babe, you are my ride or die, but we are not the same. And you don’t fucking get it sometimes.”
Directed by China Moo-Young (“Harlots”) and Julia Ford (“Safe”), “Everything I Know About Love” is now streaming on Peacock.
