In this series everything feels out of place, and yet nothing has a place – leaving you to question what type of roller-coaster ride was that? And can I have another go? The show being instantly addictive. Our protagonist, Alma (played by Rosa Salazar), reels you in straight from the start; her character shown to be clearly distressed and in a hurry to get away, so what exactly happened? And can she see to drive through her mascara-running distress? When all of a sudden she sees someone materialise out of thin air, and does she know them? It’s a major reel and will hook you straight in, but there’s no let up for air – for the shock of seeing this person causes Alma to have a crash, and from here her life changes, along with her perspective of time.
Time for Alma is no longer something straight and set, but bendable, and through this she throws herself into finding out just what happened to her father, and how he might just be involved in what’s happening to her now.
Image is courtesy of Amazon Prime Video
There are many resemblances in Undone to Alice In Wonderland; Alice is fed up and trapped in her boring life – while Alma narrates how she feels life is mundane and repetitive. Alice falls down the rabbit hole and arrives in a strange and scary world of Wonderland – these same emotions are echoed in Alma’s car accident and recovery, with her world turned inside out with time’s overlap. But the most striking similarity is the worry both of Alice and her family that she’s gone ‘mad,’ and in this Alma and her family worry the same – but as with Alice, Alma becomes convinced that her surroundings are true, and furthermore that they demand investigation.
Throughout the story the creators manage to trap you alongside Alma in her confusion; being unable to work out what is and isn’t real. This can be seen from Alma breaking up with her boyfriend, to seemingly never having broken up, and even the pictures on her walls have changed order. This technique of sowing the seeds of doubt is well-executed, and in the moments where Alma is finally given an answer (or an alternative option that makes more sense), you feel you’ve been tricked. That you should’ve known it couldn’t happen, and yet you trusted what your eyes and ears told you – and in this the show lets you experience what Alma is personally going through; the distrust, the unsurety of not knowing what to believe, and fearing your own senses. For is she time-travelling? Or is Alma mentally unwell?
Image is courtesy of Amazon Prime Video
Changing the well-played theme of time-travel is impressive, Undone’s skewed perspective, mixed with both the tenseness of a thriller and the pull of a drama – makes a highly binge-watchable show, especially at just twenty-two minutes per episode. Adding to its thought-provoking content is the visually stunning combination of live-action and animation – which is done through a technique known as rotoscoping; capturing a performance by tracing over the live-action footage frame-by-frame, and including lines to heighten the actors’ expressions, with the painters then adding the colours and shading. Meanwhile, the backdrops were created by classically trained oil-painters before being animated into a 3D setting, and in another technique known as projection mapping – the rotoscoped live-action animation was projected into the scene, giving a sense of a living-breathing painting. The result of such craftmanship is an emphasis on Alma’s world; from heightened emotions, to an almost hallucinatory nature of what’s happening – it’s magical, scary and very unstable.
Rosa Salazar who plays Alma manages to capture all the complexities of the situation and of the difficulties experienced, her emotions being so strong that it pulls you in. Bob Odenkirk is also great as a man whose passion has taken control of his morality. The only nitpick is having Alma placed as the older sister; which seems odd when in the animation series she seems younger than her sister Becca (Angelique Cabral) both in appearance, and in maturity – though this is more to do with Alma’s refusal to conform to society’s norms (and another reason why we love her). But the age gap just doesn’t seem right between them, and in reality the two ages are in reverse. Also, Nicholas Gonzalez, who plays Tomas the bartender, appears in just too few scenes, his character being both intriguing and charming. Then there is Siddharth Dhananjay who plays Sam, Alma’s sweetheart boyfriend, and who does such a good job as the sympathetic partner that you’ll root for him, even at times you should possibly boo and throw stuff instead.
Image is courtesy of Amazon Prime Video
In a moment when Alma is angry at Sam her emotions cause her to drift into the timeline of his childhood, and in doing so provides a real eye-opener into his character, and into the attitudes society can have towards those from a different culture, as well as the impact of this. Alma’s ability to see into someone’s past forces her to walk in another’s shoes, gaining their understanding and reasoning, and thereby showing different viewpoints to life. In the case of Sam, Alma becomes not quite so angry at him – if only she could commodify this ability, she’d be sold out in seconds to anyone with a partner. However, are these sneak peeks into the lives of others real? Or are we being sucked into believing what we want to? I JUST DON’T KNOW!! Thankfully season two provides some clarity, whilst enjoyably expanding a universe of possibilities elsewhere.
From the start of the show you feel invested in knowing what happens to Alma – is she alright? Will she be okay? And is what we’re seeing true? The show pulling you left to right, and so often that you’ll feel you’re going to tear down the middle – thus capturing mental health issues like never before, in particular its dissociative symptoms both from yourself and your environment. Undone is a show that everyone should see, and everyone should be talking about.
Creator: Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Other notable works:
- Tuca & Bertie 2019-2022
- BoJack Horseman 2014-2020
Creator: Kate Purdy
Other notable works:
- BoJack Horseman 2014-2020
