There’s a generation of middle-aged and perimenopausal elder millennials and xennials who refuse to do it. We’re young enough to be part of an online world that puts a premium on appearance, too old for such narcissistic self-branding to be achieved without unsustainable effort. Dating apps and social media connect people across generations, so it’s easy to become confused about how old we actually are.
Here’s a tip: ask your knees. This brings us to Youth (from Monday 21 September, HBO Max), Sharon Horgan’s dramedy about being 50. That perky title is a quip about the decade being known as “the youth of old age”.
Horgan is Alex, a divorcee in her sandwich years, caring for teenage son Ruarí and ageing parents. There’s a lot going on in her life, and some doom. She’s falling forwards in a semi-successful career as a literary agent, getting back into dating under pressure.
She needs someone to fall in love with her immediately, as she points out to her best friend. Not for romantic myth-making, but “so there’s a bit of time with the present version of me, before the ‘old me’ is here”. I’ve made it sound not funny; it’s very funny.
The world of publishing is ripe for satire, and the show wields more skewers than a kebab shop. On the walls of Alex’s office are posters for prestige titles: Life After Death – A Memoir of Guilt, Babyfingers and Where the Daylight Falls. I’ve seen all of them on the Richard and Judy Book Club.
And then there’s Goblin Seed. Goblin Seed is a ludicrous romantasy in the Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey mould. (I think that title is a pun, too.) It’s written by one of Alex’s former authors, a smug creep who self-published after rejection, and has since enjoyed runaway success with his horny, badly written prose (“The goblin seed was gold, and soon the sheets were glittering”). Tasked with wooing him back, every interaction has Alex looking as if she wants to throw up in her mouth.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
