The Australian series delivers blow after blow that may prove too much for some.
It’s a known fact that in some of TV’s bleakest explorations of life, comedy is often used as a welcome anecdote.
New Netflix series Boy Swallows Universe takes that fact to new heights as the drama follows young Eli (Felix Cameron) who has, quite plainly, been dealt one of life’s worst imaginable cards.
Despite his surroundings and upbringing, Eli remains as optimistic and as bright eyed as any teenage boy. Eli’s mother Frankie (Phoebe Tonkin) is a recovering drug addict, his step-father Lyle (Travis Fimmel) deals the very heroin his mother is fighting an addiction with, his brother Gus (Lee Tiger Halley) hasn’t uttered a word in years and his father (Simon Baker) is an angry yet absent figure.
Based on the bestselling semi-autobiographical novel by Trent Dalton, it may not be the saddest story in the world. But it’s hard not to feel for Eli as soon as the ’80s-set series starts, and Cameron delivers a stellar performance as the ever-chatty, sweary and funny Eli.
The thoughtful weaving of comedy into the scripts here gives the series a levity when it can often veer on the side of feeling very, very heavy. The series has a bleakness to it that you would think would be hard to shake, but this is a drama that proves every bit of darkness in TV needs some light to counteract it.
There’s no getting around the fact that Eli’s story is a dark one – he gets caught up in drug-related gang crossfire after all – but the character isn’t one that is blissfully naive or immature, which makes Boy Swallows Universe, a series told through the eyes of a child, actually a very adult watch.
Eli is a child who has been forced to grow old ahead of his time, with the series placing him in an unlikely older sibling role to account for his brother’s inexplicable mutism and, rather sweetly, always wanting to make sure life is good for his mother.
It’s almost a shame, then, that the story has to age Eli up. That’s life I guess, but the main jarring point of the series comes in the penultimate episode, when Zac Burgess (One Night) takes over the lead role as a different version of the chaotic youngster.
The change in performance is one to wrap your head round at first, especially as Tiger Halley isn’t replaced as older brother Gus and Burgess brings a more hard-nosed quality to the role where there wasn’t one before. It’s a brave decision to switch out the characters so late in the series and, ultimately, it’s one that shifts the tone a lot more than you’d expect.
Despite everything that unfolds in this series, Boy Swallows Universe doesn’t get bogged down in good versus bad. We get to know Slim Halliday (Bryan Brown) as the boy’s babysitter with a persistent racking cough, rather than the infamous killer the rest of Brisbane know him as. We see that Lyle (Travis Fimmel) makes a series of unfortunate decisions but is only doing so from a place of wanting to provide for his family.
The aforementioned are only a couple of familiar faces to not just Australian viewers, but to many. Simon Baker stars as Eli’s complicated alcoholic father, an unrecognisable role for any who best know Baker for his slick role in The Mentalist. Similarly, Talk To Me‘s Sophie Wilde stars as a local journalist who’s investigating Brisbane’s crime world and Anthony LaPaglia stars as Lyle’s employer and prosthetics factory owner Tytus Broz.
Producer Troy Lum describes the series as “a joyful expression of dark times” and even in the saddest moments of the series (grief, ketchup-related bullying and addiction to name a few heart-wrenching scenes), the series does remain relatively bright.
However, you do continue watching in the hopes of things getting better for Eli and Gus, but you never really know if it will. Because of this, you watch on feeling as though it’s like wading through cataclysmic heights at times, with episodes feeling like they’re sprawling ahead of you. Uneven pacing can oftentimes feel as though the series is slow without meaning to be, still providing engaging dialogue but failing to completely captivate.
The drama itself is melodramatic and packed full of moments of inspiration designed to tickle the eyes with tears, but the more cynical viewer will simply enjoy them, not be bowled over. “All you have to do is believe” are the kind of lines dotted through the series, for example.
Saying that, Boy Swallows Universe is a captivating watch that may seem like a high energy life story at first or even a comedy. But actually, it’s a drama packed full of warmth, wit and emotion, even if it does veer on the side of heavy-handed at times.
Boy Swallows Universe is available to stream on Netflix. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on.
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