'This Is Us' — Lessons in diversity, body shaming, mental health and family

In which I review the Amazon Prime series that still has me hooked and all the reasons why you must watch it.

Being a voracious reader since junior school, I have always been a sucker for a good story.

Unwittingly, I tend to submerge myself in characters so completely that for those few moments I belong entirely to them— crying with them, laughing with them — oblivious of the tear rolling down my cheek or the smile plastered on my face, participating in their glee as well as their grief.

So when I came across ‘This Is Us’ on Amazon Prime, my curiosity was piqued for many reasons. It all started with a news article that caught my attention. Illuminating the acting chops of the mellifluous Mandy Moore, this piece has even hinted at a possible Emmys run for this OTT show that seemed to be witnessing a meteoric rise in popularity. It was a concurrently running dual role of a young mother of triplets in a storyline oscillating between the past and present day where she plays an older woman confronting an impending battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Eager to see Moore on screen after a long time, I dove right in. 

(Images are sourced from Google)

Family and Mental Health

I was hooked from the first episode. The pairing of Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore as husband and wife is nothing short of a masterstroke. The passionately in-love, all-in superhero father and husband played by Ventimiglia, masterfully exuding the perfect cocktail of gravitas, charm, compassion, bravado, humility and problem-solver dad had my full attention from the get go.

Inarguably, if Ventigmilia is the ship that keeps the story afloat, Moore and her immaculate craft are the sails that propel it all forward. With a few charming smiles that age gracefully much like the rest of her, Moore lures you in and makes you believe that Rebecca Pearson is who she is now and forever. That we can never go back to someone called Mandy Moore. Hailing from different worlds, these two characters fit like two broken pieces of the same piece, glued together by their own impervious love.

Unlike other gripping shows that I tend to binge-watch at optimal speed, I took my time with this one. Like a fine wine that is savored and relished with every sip, I took my time to unearth the treasure trove of familial bondage, in particular between the three Pearson siblings - the imperfections, fractious relationships that conversely also formed the cornerstones on which hinged the reformed relationships of their later years.

What I loved the most was the brilliantly and most intricately sewn on layer upon layer of not just the broader base story but a fair amount of light shone on the unravelling of each individual character’s back stories and underlying complexities. Three siblings who could not be more different, battling their own, unique demons since their childhood deliver a poignant and relatable lesson on the importance of staying united as a family even in periods of estrangement and coming together to lift up loved ones. It is notable too how their father’s influence pulsates through these characters in all that they do as their lives progress.

In its ingenuity, the show has incorporated important global issues like racism, body shaming, eating disorders, LGBTQ, child disabilities, anxiety and mental health into each of its character stories. How this family comes together for each of its members going through one of these issues and how the show has successfully managed to normalize these conversations - especially those that come under the purview of mental health like Randall Pearson’s unrelenting anxiety issues, Kate Pearson’s damaged self esteem due to her weight and Kevin’s enormous pressure on himself to live up to the man his father was - and finding himself failing miserably at every step and even an ageing Rebecca in the throes of an impending neurological disorder while still battling with a profound grief even after many years, brings forth the importance of mental health patients and conversations that need to start within the four walls of their own homes.

Especially today, on the heels of a gradually quietening global pandemic that upended lives and fractured relationships, the need for families to double down on public displays of affection - especially in front of and with their children is important in my view.

Diversity and Body - Shaming

A white American couple with twin babies adopts a third child - an African American baby boy in the early 1980s. A boy who was abandoned by his father at a fire station. Steeped with the versatility that very few others possess, the inimitable Sterling K. Brown plays this grown-up African American boy - Randall Pearson - a boy who was born to a black family but raised by a white one and was still trying to unearth the full story of his biological family’s checkered past. The show acts as the conduit that brings forth the atrocities and racism that people of color have been subjected to since time immemorial and in particular the period in which the show is based.

It’s a wake up call to recognize that the difference in color can not and should not overshadow the sameness of all humanity.

Mental health too, remains a core and underlying commonality permeating the essence of the entire show and through all the time periods. Randall Pearson grew up with a white family that was so busy trying to give him a “normal” childhood that they never once addressed his “blackness” and the baggage that comes with it. Or how it could be affecting him and his curiosity to know more about his community and where he really came from. It is one of the main reasons why his relationship with his siblings is consistently complicated.

When I think of how my four year old is learning to embrace his classmates who come from all cultures, races, countries, sizes and colors of skin and how all of this is their “normal” right from the get go, it fills me with hope for a more inclusive, complaisant and broad-minded future.

There’s more. An overweight Kate Pearson struggles with weight loss, the inability to have a child, multiple failed IVF attempts and ultimately the success of surrogacy while her best friend is struggling with an eating disorder called Bulimia. So many issues in this one sentence that go tabooed, unspoken, ill-approved, hushed and brushed under the carpet in so many countries and cultures even today. So many issues that for the most part only garner spite instead of support.

The effortless execution of the portrayal of all these important issues in the show is noteworthy. And then there is Alzheimer’s disease. This one is close to home as it was what took my grandfather from us almost two decades ago. Moore’s portrayal of a woman who has just been diagnosed with this neurologic disorder is Emmy-worthy in my book.

I can write a whole book on why this show is a must watch. But that would be tough to do without some spoiler alerts! It’s a riveting, heart-warming and stirring watch for every one in every capacity - as a parent, a mother, a father, wife, a caregiver, a child, a friend, a partner.

These are our stories too. “This is Us”, too.