This is us
Introduction
A very famous saying, “Don’t Judge a book by it’s Cover” needs to be remembered while we judge someone. We never know what the person has been through or is going through. At some point of time we all have experienced a few struggles of our past which depicts our actions towards certain scenarios in the present. The series “This is US” represents a fine story of such scenarios and actions.
Story
The story revolves around three siblings; Kevin, Kate and Randall aka Big Three. Their parents Jack and Rebecca were going to have triplets, but unfortunately on Jack’s birthday Rebecca delivered only two healthy babies. While being in the hospital, they saw one more baby who was left at the fire station and Jack felt an instant connection with him. They decided to adopt him and become parents of three beautiful children as they thought of. While Kevin and Kate being twins, had a special connection between them, Randall- African-American child always felt left out. A few years later, when the children were 17, Jack dies and the family is emotionally traumatized. Jack is everyone’s favourite in the family- A perfect father, I would say. As the days pass by, all of the family members have their own life stories and self mechanism to cope up with this lose. Over the years they all start living a better life and Rebecca marries Jack’s best friend- Miguel, Randall becomes a successful finance professional and marries the love of his life with two beautiful daughters and adopted one daughter just as his father did for him, Kevin becomes a famous actor but struggles for true love, Kate struggles at first to become a singer like her mother but due to her weight issues her confidence levels never went up and eventually marries an amazing man and starts her singing career.
Throughout their life journey, the big three had individual adventures as well. The actions and the decisions of the present are shown to be related to their past sufferings like growing up with their father, without their father, high school dramas, family struggles and sacrifices, etc. Isn’t that we all go through? We think about what happened in the past and live in fear or act a certain way in our present life scenarios. This series is a perfect mixture of family drama filled with laughter and emotions. Nevertheless, the Big Three are always together no matter what.
Performance
I loved Milo Ventimiglia as Jack. He is shown as a perfect head of the family anyone would wish for. Though his performances were only shown during flashback scenes, but the impact it made on the entire series is impeccable. Mandy Moore as Rebecca seems to have lived a life journey with this series. We see her young, as a teenager, as a mother and than as a grand mother as well. In all these roles, her acting changed and it was pretty good. Justin Hartley as Kevin is a sassy brother every sibling needs. Sterling Brown as Randall is the controlling brother and can fix everything kind of guy. His character is very well justified by his performances at every stage. Chrissy Metz as Kate is the sister we all go to when we have issues. Doesn’t this sound a full pack family?
Direction & Screenplay
I am very well impressed with the screenplay of this series. We might think that showing instances of the past and present back and forth might be exhausting to watch. But it’s not the scenario with this series. The transition is not too much not too less. Every episode captures the essence of each story beautifully. The episodes might seem long but the content and story build up is just remarkable.
Conclusion
This series has the ability to make you laugh and cry at the same time. A family oriented drama leaving us something to think about at the end makes it one of the best series to add in the watchlist.
This series is available on Amazon Prime for 4 seasons and Hotstar has 5 Seasons. Season 6 is yet to release on our OTT platforms. Watch out for review of season 5 soon!!
Disclaimer: The above review solely illustrates the views of the writer.