Alex, the protagonist of the HBO half-hour series “Youth,” is in many ways a typical rom-com heroine. She has a glamorous job (book agent) in a glamorous city (London), with an enviable apartment to match. She has a messy love life; attracting suitors isn’t a problem, but choosing wisely between them is. She’s prone to the kind of miscommunication and messy decisionmaking that make you shout things like “JUST TALK TO HIM!” at your television, even as they generate the story required to fill out an eight-episode season.
The difference is that Alex, the latest creation of actor and writer Sharon Horgan, is freshly 50 — decidedly not the age of your average rom-com lead. This makes the title of “Youth” somewhat ironic, like the inverse of FX’s “Adults”: those kids are nowhere near maturity, while Alex’s prefrontal cortex is long since developed. But it’s also a nod to the second adolescence Alex finds herself experiencing. She’s many years divorced, and now her teenage son Rauri (Aran Murphy, babyfaced son of Cillian) is set to leave the house. The traditional guardrails of nuclear family life are off, leaving Alex with a canvas that’s thrillingly, terrifyingly blank. And thanks to perimenopause, she’s as prone to hormonal mood swings as your average high schooler.
In a note to press, Horgan positions “Youth” as the conclusion of a trilogy of sorts. Her breakout BBC series, “Pulling,” was a group portrait of chaotic 20somethings; “Catastrophe,” her four-season collaboration with American comedian Rob Delaney, was a dual love letter to early parenthood and long-term monogamy. Between and since these calling cards, Horgan has remained impressively prolific, both behind the camera (the Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle “Divorce,” which she created) and in front (the crime dramedy “Bad Sisters,” in which she played one of the title characters on top of her writing duties). But “Pulling,” “Catastrophe” and “Youth” map the most closely onto Horgan’s own biography, a quality she deems “auto-fiction-y.” There are smaller rhymes, too: the way Delaney’s character in “Catastrophe” kept Horgan’s contact saved as “Sharon London Sex,” Alex has her absentee father of an ex-husband in her phone under “Dick for Brains.”
Compared to post-collegiate self-seeking or even childrearing, one’s sixth decade is a much less mythologized phase of life. After all, it’s not as unified, or unifying, an experience: the longer paths stretch out, the more chances for them to diverge. (We’re all headed to the same place in the end, but people end up in all sorts of different places at the halfway mark.) This open space presents an opportunity for Horgan, and also explains the loose and light feel of “Youth.” Horgan remains a magnetic screen presence and a sharp comic writer, making Alex’s flailing ever enjoyable despite her aimlessness. “Youth” is still — and by design — less of a broad parable and more a specific story of one woman straining to make sense of a confusing crossroads.
Just because Alex has an empty nest doesn’t mean she’s entirely free from obligation. She’s squarely in the middle of a generational sandwich, with aging parents on one side and Ruari on the other. (A personal crisis at university quickly proves that just because her son is a legal adult doesn’t mean Alex is done looking after him.) But these tough realities don’t drive the narrative of “Youth,” nor do they harsh its vibe. They’re simply the context that frames Alex’s book festival hookups and jaunts to Ibiza. It’s as if Horgan is arguing the inevitable consequences of aging aren’t mutually exclusive with aspiration or — better for the comedy — botched experimentation.
Some of the biggest laughs in “Youth” come from its gentle spoof of the publishing industry. (Shades of the similarly named “Younger”!) Working with her friend and employer Sam (Sharlene Whyte), a boundary-free partnership that zags between deal points and Sam’s marital woes, Alex wrangles author egos and fends off competitors. Damian Lewis makes a cameo as himself, or at least a version who’s dead set on writing a treatise on dog meat; Harriet Walter plays the long-suffering daughter of a romance author determined to get her mother’s smut some prestige. The self-published novel “Goblin Seed” is a perfect parody of the romantasy trend; a reading by the insufferable author had me in hysterics.
But Alex’s chief preoccupation, and the battleground on which she confronts her insecurities, is sex and dating. Her primary love interest, Pat (Rupert Friend), is an “institutionally single” old flame with a much younger girlfriend, though Alex dabbles in an age gap of her own when Sam sets her up with an older acquaintance. (Alex may get arthritis-induced lockjaw, but she’s still quick to judge others’ neck wrinkles.) Between more serious suitors, Alex dabbles in “lightly degrading” one-night stands with continental himbos. These relationships are how Alex sharpens her self-image: old enough to look down on age-inappropriate arm candy, young enough to have an active, discriminating libido. She’s capable of ageism in both directions.
The stakes of “Youth” aren’t life-altering stuff. Alex can get distracted at work or have friction with Sam, but she’s clearly good at her job; Pat is a cute, crush-worthy writer, but Alex is too jaded and experienced to be looking for her one true love. The character’s goal is more modest, if no less interesting: She’s trying to find a route through a wilderness with no road map. It’s a little scary, but fun, too — for Alex, and for us.
The first two episodes of “Youth” will premiere on HBO and HBO Max on Sep. 20 at 10pm ET, with remaining episodes airing weekly.
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