FILM AND TV

The new Netflix series Wednesday, a spin off series of the Addams Family franchise, follows the iconic character, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), after she is expelled from a mainstream high school for getting revenge on her brother Pugsley’s (Isaac Ordonez) bullies. Her parents Gomez (Luis Guzman) and Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta Jones) send her to Nevermore Academy in Jericho, a private school for outcast children which they are alumni of. They believe she will find her group and fit into the school because of her cold, emotionless personality and the supernatural powers she inherited from her mother.

Jenna Ortega gives a stunning performance from start to finish. The main reason this show is successful is due to her powerful portrayal as the moody teenage daughter trying to be her authentic self within a society that wants nothing to do with it. Ortega creates the perfect balance of hostility and humanity to make Wednesday likeable to its audience. She meets her match with roommate Enid (Emma Myers) and pupils Xavier (Percy Hynes White), Bianca (Joy Sunday), Ajax (Georgie Farmer) and Eugene (Moosa Mostafa), as they test her cold personality and help her come out of her shell to embrace the Nevermore community.

Mystery and chaos ensues quickly as she is attacked by Rowan, a Nevermore student, during Jericho’s Carnival Night but an unknown monster stops him and kills the student instead. This sets off a complicated investigation which Wednesday feels responsible for. With the help of her roomate Enid and local barista Tyler (Hunter Doohan) they begin to investigate previous murders by the monster and learn more people within Nevermore and Jericho are involved than initially thought.

As the investigation proceeds, it starts to span decades and different generations of the Addams family and members of the Nevermore and Jericho community leaving us to follow many twists and turns. While the story of this series ebbs and flows well they have a few key issues which would normally go under the radar. Firstly, Wednesday actress, Jenna Ortega, has minimal chemistry with her parents and her two love interests Tyler and Xaviar leaving me to believe Jenna herself might not have felt exploring these relationships were necessary to Wednesday’s story. Another aspect that disappointed me was how the CGI turned out. While many mon-