Starstruck

Rose Matafeo's sitcom debut is quite a shallow story on the surface - being entirely about an aimless twenty-something who becomes romantically entangled with a film star. The series takes place over a year and manages to be both frustratingly inconsistent and strangely compelling. Whereas it doesn't have the emotional depth of other similar comedies, Matafeo and Patel have solid chemistry and the smartly framed deflation of romantic tropes helps give the central premise some real life. The problem comes whenever they're apart - and the series often feels colder the further you get from Matafeo, with the surrounding characters barely getting much agency or story of their own outside of their relation to her - which makes you wonder where the much-touted second series might actually go. The great Al Roberts feels hugely underused and Minnie Driver (as Tom Kapoor's cynical agent) barely get a look in, which feels like a huge shame, and the whole thing is shot with this wildly abstract wide-screen lens which looks dead fancy but robs it of even more warmth. So, overall, not as charming as it could be, but an intriguing start.