Overcompensating Review: In this Prime Video series, Benny finds himself exploring his sexuality and peeking outside the closet when he jumps into the madness of college. Determined to do everything right, he meets Carmen and immediately finds himself gelling with her, but the path to notoriety is a bit more complicated than that!
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Overcompensating Series Cast
Benito Skinner, Wally Baram, Mary Beth Barone, Adam DiMarco, Rish Shah
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Overcompensating Prime Video Directors
Daniel Gray Longino, Desiree Akhavan
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Overcompensating Creator
Benito Skinner
The series has 8 episodes, each with a runtime of around 30 minutes.
Overcompensating Review
Comedy-drama series Overcompensating is a fever dream and a half, along with being an introvert’s worst nightmare. But, to its merit, it picks up by quite a bit an episode or two in, and well, you also get used to the dizzingly chaotic characters and their new lives at university.
The series follows Benny, who finds himself questioning and eventually facing his sexuality when he goes to college. Living under the weight of his high-strung father’s expectations, Benny has to get everything right in life. However, when he meets Carmen, a girl whose background couldn’t be any more different from his own, he finds himself changing. And, for what it’s worth, she changes with him as well.
Understanding their own strengths and weaknesses and what it means to be a good friend forms the crux of this coming-of-age drama. There’s a charm and relatability to these characters’ life situations that make it a fun watch. The series is extremely out there and over-the-top, which leaves viewers feeling very confused at times about what they are watching. But the crux of the story and the performances make up for the craziness that unfolds onscreen.
First and foremost, I think Overcompensating overdoes the “out there” elements by a lot. The sheer volume of it has the capacity to get to viewers, and I frequently found myself questioning whether colleges truly work like this in America. I understand the kids being crazy, but the adults seem to have no handle on realism by a long shot either. It’s really grating and makes things unbelievable, which takes away from the relatability of the series.
There are some introspective and emotion-filled moments, however, and for the most part, the series does a great job of bringing the students’ lives and experiences to the forefront. Regardless of whether or not the adults are sane, the kids present a lot of interesting revelations that will touch your heart. Benny’s character arc of accepting his sexuality will be relatable to many, and the struggle to come out of the closet will make most feel heartbroken.
Series creator Benito Skinner, who plays Benny, feels like the perfect jock for the role although I do question the point of casting a 31 year old as a fresher in college. Wally Baram, meanwhile, is cute as a button and equally lost as Carmen. I loved watching her in the show. Other than them, we have Mary Beth Barone as Grace and Adam DiMarco as Peter, both of whom I thoroughly enjoyed watching in the show. DiMarco, especially, plays a misogynistic idiot with such finesse, it’s hard not to hate and pity him at the same time.
Final Thoughts
College is a time for making mistakes and learning from them for later in life. Overcompensating does a good job of bringing those experiences to life in a very over-the-top way. However, there’s warmth and a ton of reliability there that is not missed, and the series does a good job of highlighting the struggles of this transitory period in a young adult’s life.
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