Our take
Sabi, a genderfluid millennial in their mid-20s, is in a bit of a quarter-life crisis. Between balancing odd jobs, leaving a clingy boyfriend, and coming out to their family, Sabi just doesn’t have enough time to think about their identity, whatever that may be. Sabi is accused of being guarded, and indeed, in the first couple of episodes only we the omnipresent audience are privy to Sabi’s crying spells and panic attacks. To everyone else, Sabi is the calm and collected friend who loves to help everyone but themself.
Sort Of follows Sabi as they navigate adulthood, family, love, and self-expression in tender and funny ways. It has the slice-of-life vibe of shows like Better Things but with an even more low-key charm. Never in-your-face and always grounded and humane, Sort Of’s twenty-minute episodes make for a delightfully meaningful binge.
The story
Fluid millennial Sabi Mehboob straddles various identities from bartender at an LGBTQ bookstore/bar, to the youngest child in a Pakistani family, to the de facto parent of a downtown hipster family. Sabi feels like they’re in transition in every aspect of their life, from gender to love to sexuality to family to career.
Elsewhere
"Sort Of is gentle with its characters even as the stakes are existential. Everyone feels fully inhabited, and as Sabi's carefully compartmentalized worlds begin to collide, a fizzy alchemy occurs."
— E. Alex Jung
The details
Streaming arrival
Who picked it
Renee Cuisia is the lead curator at A Good Movie to Watch. In her spare time, she likes to watch K-dramas and analyze them to death. She's also seen You've Got Mail one too many times but is still convinced it's one of the greatest films out there.
