The Rag | Pop Culture
4 Things I Hated About ‘I May Destroy You’
And a couple of things I liked
Content warning: This article discusses “I May Destroy You,” a BBC x HBO series that explicitly deals with rape, sexual assault, drug use, and trauma. There are also spoilers!
This week I watched “I May Destroy You,” the critically acclaimed tour de force by Black British auteur, Michaela Coel. The 12-part series, which is billed (mistakenly, IMHO) as a “consent drama,” was this month’s selection for my intersectional women’s group film discussion. I foolishly waited until mere days before the event to watch the series in its entirety. It is not for the faint of heart and, by design, is not well-suited for bingeing.
“I May Destroy You” is important, and I respect it. But I can’t say that I enjoyed very much of it, and I question many of the narrative and artistic choices that Coel, who took the series to BBC and HBO when Netflix refused to give her sufficient creative control, made. There are some minor things that bothered me. Likeable Ben got little airtime. Theo’s unresolved family story, that blood clot thing, Arabella’s bathroom moments, and Biago’s backstory—really, just Biago in general—all felt like unnecessary narrative clutter. But here are four things I downright hated about “I May Destroy You.”
