Netflix's I Am Not Okay With This subverts the teen superhero genre

Polygon

The coming-of-age comedy based on Charles Forsman's graphic novel of the same name, starring Sophia Lillis, "is about a girl with super powers, but not about a girl with superpowers saving the world," says Petrana Radulovic. "That’s rare for the streaming platform that boasts Umbrella Academy and Stranger Things, but the small stakes make I Am Not Okay With This shine. More like Sex Education than Umbrella Academy, the series finds comedy in the way it meshes superpowers and coming-of-age plotlines, and it actually loses something when it leans too hard on the supernatural." Radulovic adds: "When I Am Not Okay With This is a show about teens being teens, instead of about some larger overarching nemesis, it eschews the trappings of well-worn, kids-with-powers drama."

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• I Am Not Okay With This sucks you in and leaves you hanging: "Even with sardonic charm radiating from (Sophia) Lillis throughout the show's entire atmosphere, Netflix's I Am Not Okay With This is insufficient," says Promo Khosla. "It’s the first act of a movie, the first half or majority of a TV season that leaves the viewer hooked, thirsting for more, and minimally satisfied otherwise. It flies by in seven episodes — not even half hours but 20-minute installments. We get immersed in Sydney's world and feelings, and just when we start to understand, we're forced to leave (we are at least afforded an answer to what event leaves Sydney bloodstained and shell-shocked in scattered flashes to the show's finale). Even one more episode would have served the show well by setting up Syd’s next steps and any additional background on her mysterious stalker."
• Sophia Lillis carries what's mostly a middling teen show: "I Am Not Okay With This does have a super power in its teen lead," says Angelica Cataldo. "Lillis’ remarkable facial expressions lend weight to the story as well as provide comedic relief. The actor is able to relay a great deal—annoyance and awkwardness—through her character’s eyes, and even when her expression is shuttered, Lillis’ brings persuasive physical comedy to her performance. The plot and story are simple, linear, and more than a little familiar, but Lillis successfully carries this first season to its gory, suspenseful ending. Without her fresh spin on how a 'superhero' should behave, the show falls flat in developing anything other than a predictable path to self-acceptance."
• Overall, I Am Not Okay With This is an entertaining binge: "It may not add much to its laundry list of creative forebears, but it doesn’t conjure them only to remind us of what we could simply be rewatching instead, either," says Alison Herman. "Only after one has shotgunned all seven chapters in a single afternoon does the nagging suspicion set in that the future will only see more shows like it—that companies like Netflix have so mastered consumer preferences that they can survive on infinite iterations of themselves. Black Mirror begat The Circle; Stranger Things and The End of the F***ing World have led to this latest offering. We may, unfortunately, have to be OK with this."
• It's a snarky, female-centric blue collar story with some killer tunes and an open attitude toward sexuality
• What distinguishes I Am Not Okay With This is that it commits as fully to its YA half as to its biff-pow-blam half
• I Am Not Okay With This Is better off being called "I’m Not Okay With This F***ing World"
• I Am Not Okay With This' soundtrack is full of John Hughes Easter eggs
• Charles Forsman discusses I Am Not Okay With This as his second graphic novel to be adapted for TV  following The End of the F***ing World
• I Am Not Okay With This co-creator Christy Hall found inspiration in Stephen King's Carrie: "You have these prized female characters like Roald Dahl’s Matilda, Stephen King’s Carrie, the very beloved Eleven from Stranger Things,” Hall tells Variety. “We knew we were entering into the sandbox of these treasured characters. We didn’t want to be afraid of leaning into these treasured, iconic, visceral images that we had all grown up with. Simultaneously we always wanted Sydney to feel unique in her own way — that she is her own version of this celebrated landscape.”