MADDY REMINGTON
managing editor
Zac and Mia sit in Mia’s hospital room to discuss Zac’s plans for her 18th birthday. He surprised her with VIP tickets to see her favorite band, LANY, in concert.
“Zac and Mia” is a predictable rom-com with mediocre acting, cheesy dialogue and cliché storylines.
The series starts by introducing the main character, Zac, who likes video games and memorizing statistics. But he also happens to have cancer and is in protective isolation for 100 days. His family is always around him and he indulges in being an anchor for them as they deal with the emotional turmoil of his illness.
Next up the audience meets Mia, the stereotypical “valley girl,” who likes her hair, makeup and cares only about her image. She also happens to have just been diagnosed with cancer, but she hides it from all of her loved ones out of fear of looking weak.
The storyline is almost comical because of how predictable it is.
The blonde girl moves into the hospital room next door. They see each other for the first time, and their eyes light up. The boy falls for the girl, but there’s a twist: the girl has a boyfriend. In typical “Wild-Child” style, while the girlfriend is away the boyfriend cheats on her with her best friend. Who saw that one coming?
The series seems to follow its predecessors like “Six Feet Apart” where the pair begins to fall in love in the confinement of the hospital and the world is their oyster, or so they thought.
Zac and Mia meet face-to-face for the first time after Zac breaks isolation.
As they begin to realize their intense feelings for each other, they do riskier moves to the point where Zac breaks his protective isolation to prove his spontaneity. Ultimately, he ends up in a coma because he was exposed to a germ that severely affects his already compromised immune system.
In a series of rather odd dreamscapes, the audience is introduced to Zac and Mia’s fears, which adds to the already confusing storyline. The series is pretty fast-paced and provides no real clarity as to the situation in which they fall in love at ample speed in their bubble. Meanwhile, Mia is still simultaneously dating her boyfriend, Rhys, from school, who also happens to be cheating on her.
The dialogue is predictable and seems like it was taken directly from just about every other rom-com out there, and it adds no real substance to the series. The storyline is incredibly cliche and tacky to the point that the viewer is cringing.
The second season only gets cheesier and confusing. The production company decided to recast several of the main characters as well as throw in brand new characters, which only increases the perplexion.
The acting was mediocre at best. Kian Lawley, who plays Zac, portrays the lovesick puppy trope at about an average level. Meanwhile, Anne Winters, who plays Mia, does a great job at letting the emotions speak for themselves. She highlights the torment that comes with chemotherapy impressively, where similar films would normally brush over it.
Zac and Mia, to its credit, has awe-inspiring cinematography. This was the most impressive element of the series, probably the result of a relatively high budget because of its production through Netflix and AwesomenessTV. The score was relatively great, with renditions of LANY present as the couple’s “song.”
However cheesy and cliché the series was, rom-com fans can still find delight in the simple pleasures of the overdone hospital romance trope. Zac and Mia can be enjoyed by anyone who’s a fan of the Disney Channel-esque “trying-too-hard-to-be-relevant” theme.
