Entailing the heart-wrenching teen drama, Netflix’s A Part of You strikes into a really emotive drama dealing with grief and self-identity. With the sensitive touch of director Sigge Eklund, grounded by Felicia Maxime alias of Young Royals fame, the movie dives headlong into tragedy with sensitivity and nuance.
The story centers around Agnes—shy, pallid, and overlooked for her older sister, Julia—performed by Zara Larsson. When Julia’s sudden death shatters Agnes’ world, the movie takes one through her journey of bereavement and self-discovery. Maxime plays the role with tenderness and sensitivity and features Agnes at her most reserved, then bare from deep loss and newfound freedom.
Eklund’s direction is agile, finding a balance in the emotional chaos with quiet moments of introspection that one can actually empathize with Agnes as she struggles to cope. Not unlike Euphoria, it is artful to aesthetically contrast cinematography in ways that show the beauty around Agnes while she internally deals with her chaos of grief.
It unwraps at the point when Agnes meets Julia’s friends; most especially Noel, Julia’s boyfriend, who later turns to be a central person in Agnes’ journey. These relationships add depth to Agnes as a Griever, showing both healthy and destructive ways of coping.
At its core, A Part of You is not a coming-of-age story but more of an in-depth exploration into how bereavement reshapes identity. It shuns melodrama and seeks to create realness, taking one deep inside Agnes’ emotional tornado. Maxime delivers a performance that anchors the film, turning in something heartbreaking yet full of hope.
Although the movie picks up its pace bit by bit, and it has occasional speed acceleration issues early on, with plots sometimes thin, A Part of You does manage to convey a sound motif in loss and the sense of getting back up; it is willing to skirt clichés associated with teen dramas by construing nuanced portrayals of grief, buttressed by Maxime’s stellar performance.
For any viewers seeking a touching insight into adolescence and grief, A Part of You is a worthy contribution to Netflix’s stable as it goes on to offer its audience depth and emotional resonance transcending the genre conventions.
Worth the watch!