Nor­mal Peo­ple faith­ful­ly cap­tures the inten­si­ty of Sal­ly Rooney’s novel

Hailed as ​“the first great mil­len­ni­al nov­el­ist,” Sal­ly Rooney proved she was no one-hit won­der with her hot­ly-antic­i­pat­ed sec­ond nov­el ​‘Nor­mal Peo­ple’. News of a forth­com­ing BBC/​Hulu adap­ta­tion was met with a sim­i­lar lev­el of expec­ta­tion, and fans of the book will be hap­py to learn that the show cap­tures the raw inti­ma­cy of Mar­i­anne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell’s (Paul Mescal) on-again, off-again romance with­out los­ing the inten­si­ty of Rooney’s words.

It is dif­fi­cult to tell a ver­sion of boys-meets-girl while inject­ing some­thing new into the dynam­ic, how­ev­er, Rooney and co-screen­writer Alice Birch have done just that. Start­ing their final year of high school, Mar­i­anne and Con­nell couldn’t be more dif­fer­ent. She is a lon­er who refus­es to play to social con­ven­tions; he is the pop­u­lar star of the local Gael­ic foot­ball team and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly gift­ed. Their paths cross away from the pry­ing eyes of Connell’s friends at Marianne’s opu­lent but cold home, where his moth­er works as a clean­er. With­in these walls, Mar­i­anne is trapped in a cycle of abuse she can­not wait to escape.

Instead of star-crossed lovers sep­a­rat­ed by a feud, this cou­ple is plagued by mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the fear of what oth­er peo­ple think. Con­nell is shaped by the lat­ter ear­ly on, includ­ing his mis­han­dling of their bur­geon­ing romance against the back­drop of small-town per­cep­tions. Both are accept­ed to study at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Dublin, but where­as Mar­i­anne finds her social foot­ing in the city, Con­nell is cut adrift. ​“I feel like I’m walk­ing around try­ing on a hun­dred dif­fer­ent ver­sions of myself,” he explains. Rather than falling foul of typ­i­cal ado­les­cent arche­types, Nor­mal Peo­ple is a reminder this peri­od in our lives is a lot more com­plex and nuanced than tick­ing one par­tic­u­lar per­son­al­i­ty box.

There is a sex­u­al ele­ment to the con­nec­tion between the cen­tral char­ac­ters, and it is in these moments of intense inti­ma­cy that the pair appears to speak a lan­guage no one else under­stands. Sex is a big part of the book, as Rooney cap­tures a yearn­ing that stems not only from lust but the desire to be seen.

All pre­tence is shed along with their clothes, with Lenny Abra­ham­son (who direct­ed the first six episodes) set­ting the tone by con­vey­ing a trans­for­ma­tive act via tight close-ups and lin­ger­ing looks. Lay­ing them­selves bare in every sense of the word, the post-coital soul shar­ing is just as rev­e­la­to­ry. In a move that is thank­ful­ly becom­ing more com­mon, an inti­ma­cy coor­di­na­tor worked with the young actors, and the results speak for themselves.

Mak­ing his full act­ing debut, Paul Mescal is a rev­e­la­tion as Con­nell, depict­ing the character’s emo­tion­al strug­gles with great sen­si­tiv­i­ty. At times his face looks like it is about to col­lapse under the weight of his anx­i­ety. No mat­ter how good the writ­ing is (and it is very good), a show like this always relies on its cast, and in Mescal and Edgar-Jones the pro­duc­ers have unearthed a duo who per­fect­ly embody the spir­it of the source mate­r­i­al. Match­ing the com­pul­sive page-turn­ing qual­i­ty of Rooney’s nov­el, this 12-part TV romance is any­thing but normal.

Nor­mal Peo­ple is avail­able on BBC Three from 26 April and Hulu from 29 April.