Cherry Bomb

Middle-school mortification on “PEN15.”

- Emily Nussbaum

In Hulu’s “PEN15,” Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine, who are best friends and the show’s co-creators (with Sam Zvibleman), play versions of themselves at thirteen, entering seventh grade, in 2000, delusionally convinced that this will be “the best year ever.” To look authentically adolescent, the actresses, who are both around thirty, go full “21 Jump Street”: they bind their breasts, wear braces, and adopt the halter-topped, cargo-panted fashion of the late nineteen-nineties. All the other kids—the protagonists’ crushes, their geeky buds, their rich-girl nemeses—are played by real teens.

It’s a risky tactic, one that could easily feel gimmicky or unconvincing. (Or queasy, considering that the boys they crush out on and, in some cases, make out with are actually prepubescent—an issue the show skirts with trick camerawork.) In early episodes, “PEN15” can feel abrasive, swinging from cruelty to uplift, real to surreal, in a way that takes some getting used to. It’s funny, but with a cringe-humor jolt, and, if you’ve seen (or lived) certain narratives about nerdy outsiders, there will be story beats that are familiar, including an online Cyrano arc that doesn’t quite land.