Talk Web Series With Us: Swerve
Interested in web series? AKA short (4-10 min per episode), fun sized series on YouTube that cram as much story into one episode as an hour-long show would. Looking for suggestions? Seek no more. We’re bringing you Talk Web Series With Us, featuring a new web series every week! Sit back, relax, log onto YouTube, and explore the stories web series have to offer!
Next stop: Swerve
My mind is blown. Absolutely, completely, and entirely blown. I have goosebumps writing this. But before I delve deep into the emotional train wreck I experienced while watching that 6-episode web series; I’m rewinding it back to where it all started.
Chapter 01: No Small Talk
“The swerve- to deviate suddenly from the straight or direct course,” Elise (Sharon Belle) explains in the opening dialogue of Swerve, a new web series created by Skeleton Key Films. She continues, “that’s the story of my life,” while packing up the little belongings she has and stuffing them into the backpack she knows all too well at this point. The swerve.
I am Elise. Elise is me.
A lost soul, being tossed around by the wind, finding a home in the most random of ways. “For seemingly no reason, I’ll jerk the wheel of my life and crash into something totally unexpected.” The opening monologs of each episode have quickly become my favorite part of the series. They’re honest and profound and thought-provoking. They’re relatable. They’re real.
“It’s time for me to ramble on,” she quotes Led Zepplin, setting forth on her next adventure. Elise parks herself on the side of a busy street, waiting for what’s next.
Enter Jen (Kat Inokai), another lost soul.
She pulls over to the side of the road, asking Elise how far she’s heading. Elise doesn’t know yet, but Jen offers her a ride anyway. While trading stories, the two decide, “if there’s one thing this world could do with less of- it’s uninspired small talk.” So their only rule becomes: no small talk.
They seemingly drive all night and end up at a little cottage on a lake that Jen rented. She offers Elise to stay with her for as long as she needs. There, they meet Stevie (Emily Alatalo), lost soul number three, completing the trifecta.
And that’s where it all begins.
The rest of the series is a beautifully portrayed story of strangers becoming family, lost souls finding a purpose, people discovering the deeper parts of themselves. Not many people live out of a backpack like Elise. We don’t have the means to ditch our lives and rent a cottage in the woods like Jen. We don’t have the guts to open up to another person like Stevie. But we should. Shouldn’t we?
At a certain point in life, we all feel stuck. Eventually. These three girls find their way to one another at the exact moment their lives are falling apart. They’re freight trains in search of something. Anything. But what they find is what they least expected, and that’s the relationships they begin to build with each other. And then learning what could tear that apart.
Interested? I’d hope so after hearing about it! Check out the teaser trailer below, because if my review didn’t sell this web series enough, then I’m confident the magical cinematography and the killer soundtrack will.
Watched the series? Let me know what you think in the comments!