Love Is A Funny Thing: One Scene From Euphoria

I was going to write, harsh and sharp-tongued on the alarming new trend of viewers' new found confidence and penchant for bodyslamming tv show and film creators when things don't go their way enmasse, on Twitter in a mindblowing and mass sense of inflated ego - you try writing it then, you wouldn't last five minutes, my guy, and I say that as a former creative writing student- or: 'Everyone's (Literally) a (Very emotional an ill-informed) Critic' - as the old adage goes. But I'm taking a page from Rue's book and turning a criticism into a praise.

Namely Sam Levinson's rose for Lexi, the only contender for Gia, Storm Reid's heavily relied upon much-suffering sister of a drug addict out of control, and her 'I've got too much of other people's shit on me and it stinks' throne. Don't get me wrong - I live for the performances and dialogue of Rue and Cassie's shiny, sparkly and effervecent relative breakdowns, crafted and performed beautifully and fearlessly by Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney respectively, or even Jacob Elordi's Nate's 'I'm definitely going to go to prison for something awful pretty soon' vibes, but Lexi is who I see myself in most.

I don't have trauma, at least none I've inherited - and when Lexi states in her self-penned play that her brain doesn't turn off, or respond, or can't be controlled by substances, I felt that too. Lexi's damage is internal, quiet, scuttling around in the dark, muffled by Rue's traffic gymnastics, her sister Cassie's wails or even Maddie's overstifling confidence, but she's weighed down by existential dread, anxiety and what we in the psych biz call 'Apolocyptic Thinking' every moment she's awake. You don't notice her. And that's why you have to keep an eye out for her. Levinson excels in dialogue to make you weep with laughter or pain, but I want to talk about the loud moments of Lexi's silence and how the actress, Maude Apatow has a knack of using Sam Levinson's silences as her mouthpiece so effectively. And how genius it was of him and his sound team to fill that silence not with dialogue, but instead with the refrain from the concerto of a 1960s French film.

No spoilers: but I am about to talk loosely about some events that occur in Season 2, episode 8, the finale of Euphoria. I could rhapsodise for hours about Levinson's script and direction, the design, the set, the costumes, the editing for hours - at just under an hour I got more out of it than 200 minutes at the cinema as Levinson and team give a masterclass on not only how to spin plates, but taking the time to gloss and decorate as he goes along. Too much to say, and I'm still taking it all in frankly.

But, if I may, I want to concetrate on one scene/montage in the episode that stayed with me, even as the big set pieces and tragedies played after it rang out. Levinson takes us, time and time again to the memory of Rue's speech at her father's wake in a myriad of ways: gently leading some times and others pressing our faces to the window in choice moments to remind us of why Rue is who she is, and why she does the unforgivable time and again. Her origin story if you will. We visit here again in this last ep but this time the camera is just as much on Lexi as it is a greiving Rue. Lexi lost her father too, but not in such a literal sense. An addict, a deadbeat and now a no-show, Lexi learned to live without a father too. Much like Rue through her father’s illness,Lexi has scars from constantly worrying if this call to the hospital would be to see her father mortally wounded, or for Rue if being called down the hall is to see her father passed away. They share that trauma, and yet proces it in a different way. As Rue says at the wake: "This is the scene that scars her forever."

Rue also says "It felt like a movie." and this is where I wanna give a big slobbery kiss to Jen Malone and Wylie Stateman, music supervisor and sound designer respectively as the soundtrack unlike I'd ever heard dominates the action. I shazamed it immediately, and a search came up: Francis Lai - Concerto Pour La Fin D'un Amour (1969), a theme for a French film by Claude LeLouch about lost love, longing looks, very French and 60s. I play music, have done since I was a child, and the use of that melancholic, soaring concerto of piano and strings reached down my throat and tugged directly at my heart. And I mean - the joint came out in '69 - what the everloving hell possessed Malone, Stateman and Levinson to play me like that? A track, by all rights, here in 2022 I should never have heard? I was born in ‘91 ffs. Mind-blowing caretaking of an audience from everyone there: I was at once stimulated, soothed and troubled by its use as a score to Lexi's bystander suffering. I mean just listen to it:

Her sister accuses her of just that, being a bystander onstage in a fit of pique, intending to wound, but instead defining Lexi to her core. Lexi forces herself to watch, to be present, not to look away, to witness as a kind of penance and an effort to lend her empathy, her shared experience, her help. I think I do this too. So when the strings are soaring, and the arpeggios are going up and down the length of the keys, Lexi, in slow motion visits her father, unconsious and beat up in the hospital, an addict, and about to exit her life by choice and unthinkingly puts her arms around her more emotional, crying sister. She doesn't think about it, just offers support, delaying her own reactions and feelings. The editing is so perfect, the transition divine when we see Lexi returning to the same hospital room, now older, as the concerto theme returns with gusto, as all concertos do to devastating effect. The next moment, Rue lies in a self-made recovery position in the same hospital after yet another OD. She is embraced this time by Rue's mother, but it doesn't mean the same thing as her hug to her sister moments before. The damage is done. This is the scene that scars her forever.

She functions, but as she says often 'I always feel like something bad is about to happen' - and as a resident of the Euphoria-verse, it usually does. However, it's easy to see how her mindset in in real life would be affected: her choice to trust, to be open, is affected by those around her who don't mean to, but let her down. I would like to take a moment to thank Levinson and his directon for showing a more subtle desctruction, a quiet breakdown, slow and methodical, rather than the loud and messy we expect from this show and actually in TV in general. But here is the spotlight for the other kind of trauma we face: the internalised one. It's not an easy thing to do: far more safe to stick to the car chases and the shoot outs, the bitch slaps and the sex scenes but here Levinson scales that mountain with ease. And I felt seen. A triumph of understanding, set against the backdrop of the most lush, painful swell of my new favourite 3:26secs.

Pour La Fin D'un Amour is about, from what I can make out, lost love, meeting the right person at the wrong time, Brief Encounter kinda love. The composer Francis Lai won many Grammys and Golden Globes for his soundtracks and frequent collaborations with filmaker Claude LaLoch, and was quite popular internationally as well as owning the French cinema soundtrack field. That is was used in Euphoria, for that scene full of the silent and subtle pain of Lexi, as the explanation of who she is, how she thinks, and how I think too - as a clincial overworrier, anxiety-ridden and quiet who often finds salvation and joy in music, classical especially, I was moved. To my core. This simple ditty, here transposed to an orchestra, full of twists and turns, longing and masterful playing was written for two flawed lovers in typical concerto form, written for a screen that would fill a room. Here it’s used as Lexi’s singular longing to not feel as she does all the time: to not have to visit a hospital for a father or a best friend, a normal childhood, a more forgiving road to travel down, here given the weight of a film score for a few seconds of tv air time. Thank you Euphoria, Maude Apatow and Sam Levinson. Truly, this concerto is a gift. Brb off to learn how to play it:

Pour La Fin D'un Amour means 'Love Is A Funny Thing' and I think it sums up people like myself and Lexi very well.

Much love.

Jx