Hulu's 'Looking for Alaska' review: John Green's 2005 coming-of-age story paints a discourse on loss and seeking a 'great perhaps'
Spoiler alert!
Francois Rabelais' last words were "I go to seek a great perhaps" — a phrase made more popular and known by the vast majority of young adults back in the year 2005 when John Green's cult-classic coming of age rom-com 'Looking for Alaska' was published.
Now, 14 years down the line and after several shelved attempts at churning those words onto the screen, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage — the maestros who blessed pop culture with 'The OC', and 'Gossip Girl' — have sought their "great perhaps" with the Hulu limited series of the same name.
In a sea of drug addictions and unnecessary supernatural elements used to drag the plot of some of today's most popular TV shows, Hulu's 'Looking for Alaska' couldn't have been timed better.
In a sans-cell phone world dating back to 2005, we still manage to navigate through the serene static of young adult respite amidst the eerie calmness of Culver Creek, and Mile 'Pudge' Halter's never-ending struggle to impose a meaning to everything that the eponymous Alaska Young was.
That, of course, comes with the disclaimer that if one is an ardent fan of the book, things are about to change if they watch the show — but only for the better.
The most impactful aspect of the eight-part miniseries has to be the way it begins: Miles' (Charlie Plummer) calm voice breezes through the screen as he sets up the mood for the adventure that awaits him.
He talks about the great perhaps in the backdrop of rain and police lights blaring on the screen. The soundtrack adds to the teasingly mysterious calmness of everything that people who have read the book will assume is in the wake of the big plot twist that is to come.
What comes instead is a loud bang and a crash, as a vehicle collides with another and spins into its tragic ending, landing on an abandoned freeway's roadside like a long-forgotten dream that was meant to be abandoned anyway.
And in that, the series is every bit similar to the book — hitting us with a twist like a bulldozer out of the blue, just the way the grand revelation arrives in the middle of the book, without preparing you for even a fraction of it.
