Netflix doesn’t seem to have Legally Blonde, so maybe that is why they felt the need for a show like Cindy La Regia: The High School Years. The series is a prequel to the 2020 Spanish Comedy film titled Cindy La Regia. We haven’t seen the film, but the premise did not sound out of the box. As for the series, the sentiment remains the same. It follows the story of Cindy, who learns to cope with life when all her plans start falling through like a pack of cards due to one mistake.
The central premise of the show is that Cindy lives in a conservative town. While discovering how to think beyond the conditioning of those around her to find her own voice, Cindy learns a few lessons of her own that teach her to be more confident about her choices and even her mistakes. It doesn’t sound bad, and to be honest, it isn’t, except that it is not particularly exciting either. However, season 1 of Cindy La Regia: The High School Years is kept very short, with just seven episodes of twenty to twenty-five minutes each, which makes this a decent watch. The story is also about sisterhood and how women find their way back to each other through their mistakes. Cindy and her friends don’t behave in a perfect manner all the time. They cross some lines, are selfish with their help, and are often scared when doing the right thing. But there is always an understanding of what unites them all, and the representation of this felt very natural. There is a particular arc in the series where there is an issue between Cindy and one of her friends. While both of them are keeping their distance from each other, they also communicate about how they want to be there for their friends by setting aside their differences for a while. More than that, they have a conversation later where they address their hurt emotions in a confused manner and ask for time to deal with them. This happens without any accusations or raised voices, and it felt liberating to see such a mature take on conflict resolution between women on screen.
The characters on screen are ones we have seen before. Cindy is the perfectionist who is learning to understand the cost of having dreams when the world is against you; Angie is the rebel who doesn’t like anyone at first; Lucia is the best friend who likes the lead’s boyfriend and turns out to be a better match for him and other such characters. None of them were new, but in the interest of finding something positive to say, maybe we can admit that this reflects real life. After all, a lot of the friends’ groups we know are constituted the same way, and they go through their respective ups and downs. In the continuing interest of this reality, we also have to admit that the scene where a girl is throwing up in the toilet is way more realistic than we would have liked. Seriously, the vomit is all over instead of just being insinuated. However, her makeup remains perfect, no matter how sick she gets.
Coming back to a previous point, while the short runtime of the series is a smart move, it is upsetting how it failed to elaborate on some aspects of the relationships between characters. For example, Angie and her mother’s issues needed a more elaborate discussion. When Angie’s mother spoke about why she felt the need to put some distance between herself and her daughter, women across the world related to it. But again, this shouldn’t have been just a touch-and-go moment. Additionally, Angie’s breakup with her girlfriend was somewhat random. It could have used an elaboration on the problems between them. We also felt that Tere’s arc needed better exploration. The girl had a huge journey to cover in terms of understanding and expressing herself, and it felt a little rushed at the end of the season.
While the men did not take up a significant part of the story, it was obvious that sexism was a running theme of the show. This was one of the major obstacles the girls had to deal with, along with the prominent homophobia. There are a lot of incomplete conversations in the show, and we have to assume that they will be covered in Cindy La Regia: The High School Years season 2. Coming to the other aspects of the series, the actors did a decent job, though Luciana Vale as Angie and Anxel Garcia as Lucia are our favorites. They seemed like such natural fits for the characters. Usually, we don’t like the forcefully gothic girl, but Luciana Vale does it too well.
As for the cinematography, there isn’t a lot to it. The school, the expansive house, and the switch to a smaller house for a few scenes are all rather generic. They fit the story just fine, but there is nothing noteworthy. However, we would have liked it if Michelle Pellicer, as Cindy, had been dressed better. Her entire character was surrounded by privilege, so maybe she should have dressed the part. After all, she sounded like the self-help type of person who woke up to the sound of motivational quotes in the room, so her wardrobe did not really match up to that perception.
Cindy La Regia series is undoubtedly sensitive with its storytelling and character sketches. If only they had not been in such a rush, it could have been a richer story. We have criticized it a fair bit, but there is no denying that it is an easy watch to kill some time. The characters are easy to understand, the important men are decent, and most of all, there is no cringe at all. Watching it with company might be even better because that may prompt a good recollection of memories and subsequent gossip. Our advice would be to not take any of it too seriously and just enjoy the very short runtime of it.
