When you spend so much time and energy hiding who you are, it becomes second nature. It’s exhausting. With a gluttony of queer-friendly content out there, we sometimes dismiss the struggle of those who still trying to convey themselves in a natural way. I thought I knew what Overcompensating was goig to be, but I was proven wrong. Benito Skinner’s college-set coming out/coming-of-age has familiar beats of post-high school life with its frat house aspirations and party shenanigans, but there is something quite pure at its center. Skinner emerges as a force to be reckoned with as Overcompensating shoves itself to the front of the line of stories that are equally thoughtful, horny, anxious, and hilarious.
Do you know that feeling in college where you latch onto the first person you connect with? Maybe it’s your roommate, or maybe it’s someone that you make eyes with as you are hauling your things into your new dorm. It’s very common for those people to eventually drift from you, because they are there, sometimes, to serve as a lifesaver when you have no one. You hang out with them or grab dinner until you find a deeper connection.
Skinner stars as Benny, a golden boy from Idaho whose parents are thrilled that he will be attending Yates University. It’s a prestigious college that looks very adjacent to Harvard–it feels like Elle Woods is about to walk into the frame. Benny’s life feels ripped from an Abercrombie catalog: star football player, hot girlfriend, enviable physique. What he’s concealing, though, are memories of rewinding George of the Jungle to glimpse at Brendan Fraser in that loincloth or listening to Britney Spears’ “Lucky” on repeat. Could attending Yates be the key to living the life that he thinks he should be leading? What is the “right type” of gay? Benny is haunted from a missed connection (with Lukas Gage, no less) that proves that his sexuality is constantly on his mind.
He meets Wally Baram’s Carmen at orientation, and she crushes on him immediately. While Benny’s parents (played by Kyle McLachlan and Connie Britton) are more than enthusiastic about their son entering Yates’ econ program, Carmen’s parents are nowhere to be found. When she links up with her rooommate, Hailee (played by Holmes), she fibs that they had to leave because they were crying too hard. Adam DiMarco plays Peter, the confident, bro-y beau to Benny’s sister, Grace. Both Hailee and Peter tell their respective wards that they need to hook up with someone the first week of college or they will, horror of horrors, be relegated to the embarrassing improv troupe crowd since they will be brandished as losers. Benny and Carmen’s anxieties get the best of them as they inhabit a charade of what other people expect from them.
“Life isn’t about doing what you want,” is said to Benny by someone older who has everything figured out, but how do you give yourself the permission to go for what you want? Benny has been surrounded by other guys who hoot and holler and whoop and yell so much that not did he must not feel comfortable when he felt different but he knew that he couldn’t express himself how he wanted to. Overcompensating‘s men embody that 2000s movie dude-man-bro nature so viciously that Seann William Scott is shivering somewhere. These characters spend a lot of time looking in the mirror to make sure how they say something and what they say doesn’t look or sound like it will get them sent packing.
Skinner is remarkable as Benny. When he is trying to sound casual, he rolls his eyes to toss something away, but we know how much deeper he’s digging as he lies and maneuvers to not come out of the closet. He joins a film analysis class, because of the dreamy, cool Miles, played by Rish Shah. The lines between true, hetero brotherhood and gay glee become blurred as their friendship grows stronger, but Skinner never stops percolating in Benny’s skin. He switches from jittery nervousness to full-scale bro bravado with ease because it is his safety net. He pitches his louder and deeper as he shouts and brags about. It’s fascinating and tragic, but Skinner also never loses the comedy of it all.
The chemistry between Skinner and Baram is one of the main reasons to check out Overcompensating. Her Carmen has a confidence inside of her hidden under piles of family pain, but she puts so many other people first. When Carmen pushes herself, in scenes when she’s frustrated with Benny or when she’s flirting with DiMarco’s Peter, you don’t know how she is going to surprise herself, and that’s exciting to watch. Holmes’ Hailee is equal parts Paris Hilton and Anna Faris. Owen Thiele’s George, an out cashier, could’ve been a stereotype, but the writing serves him well as Thiele injects him with knowing humor. The editing, from Todd Downing, Amelia Allwarden and Christian Kennard, deserves high praise for how it uses split screens and flashbacks to enhance everyone’s mounting insecurities.
Overcompensating isn’t just a huge college blowout. Yes, there is stress about getting fake IDs and scoring booze for your first campus pregame, but it ruminates on identity while jumping around to a Charli XCX beat. When you discover the right path at the right moment, your personal education has so much more to explore.
Overcompensating debuts all eight episodes on Prime Video on May 15.
