‘Sort Of’ Review: Expanding Horizons
"Sort Of," the HBO Max comedy from Bilal Baig, returns for a second season with all its messy drama intact.
Sort Of is a love story. A queer ode to the messy intensity of anxieties that come with coming into your own. A story about loving your friends and family through all the speedbumps and a rarity in how eloquently the queer experience can be told. Even then, Sort Of (★★★☆☆) stands out for its love of the awkward in between.
From Bilal Baig and Fab Filippo, the HBO Max series follows Sabi Mehboob, a non-binary Pakistani twentysomething, as they navigate family, friends, and love in Toronto. Perpetually broke, Sabi juggles working at an LGBTQ bookstore and being a nanny, while simultaneously trying to find love and acceptance from their family. Season two sees Sabi preparing for their Pakistani Muslim father Imran’s first visit to Canada in years, and the first since they began living as a non-binary person.
Two families at the center of Sort Of take up the majority of the plot, with a little unevenness. The family’s story revolves around Bessy, the Kaneko-Bauer matriarch, who is recovering from a major accident. The family, for whom Sabi works as a nanny, can feel out of place in the overall story, and detract from the momentum the show builds. While Sabi meshes well with the family, they still don’t always feel like part of the same story, with the family drama at the center of Kaneko-Bauer’s usually having little to do with Sabi, other than their general proximity to the situation.
Sabi’s own family are the most compelling heart of the show. Building upon season one’s development, Ellora Patnaik as Raffo Mehboob, Sabi’s mother, is a continuous standout. Few shows have ever eloquently shown the awkward love of a parent learning how to change, but even fewer still manage to bring their humanity beyond just being a parent.
Sabi’s father, played by Dhirendra, is a wonderful heel, playing the conservative father role with a quiet toxicity that will be very familiar to many LGBTQ people. The parents’ relationship with each other and their children are fascinating enough for an hour-long drama, making some of the weaker parts of the show stick out.
Sort Of really soars when it narrows in on the messy family dynamics of the Mehboob’s. All of the family members feel realized in a chillingly familiar way, with their clumsy handling of the protagonist’s queerness hitting just as hard as it needs to. The show’s handling of the LGBTQ immigrant experience is tender but full of passion, never ignoring their culture while daring to change it.
The show works best when it isn’t trying to be funny or clever and just lets things occur naturally. Sabi and their father are quietly the most powerful forces early on, while Sabi’s mother brings out beautifully tender moments that seem to slip away too quickly. The back and forth between the two families has its moments, but has trouble integrating with the plots about Sabi’s personal and love life.
The other plots, mostly revolving around Sabi’s work, don’t bring nearly enough emotional weight, even if they do give Baig a chance to do some great acting. Sabi’s story feels scattered when it tries to capture everything it wants to envelop. The large amount of story threads ends up hurting the side characters more than anything. Sabi’s sister, Supinder Wraich as Aqsa Mehboob, ironically has trouble getting anyone to pay attention to her, including the show’s plot. The Kaneko-Bauer patriarch, Paul (Gray Powell), suffers the most from the plotting, occasionally feeling like a stranger in his own show.
7ven, pronounced like the number and played by Amanda Cordner, doesn’t suffer as much from this, but their story still ends up being pigeonholed into the greater story and fading to the back.
The highs of Sort Of always come when the music from the party ends and Sabi is left on their own.
Baig wonderfully holds the entire show together with a captivating performance. Whether it is voicemail ruminations of ghosting or walking kids to school, Baig quietly dominates every scene they are in.
From a technical standpoint, Sort Of maintains a level of quality expected from a show with the HBO label. Each episode is precisely shot, even if most of the settings are pretty mundane. It’s very easy for television shows to try and shove in a popular song at the end of an episode, but Sort Of‘s use of its pop soundtrack is one of the best.
There are not enough shows like Sort Of on the air. It’s one of the rare LGBTQ shows that refuses to conform to the idea that queer people have to give up who they are to be accepted. Sabi talks early in the show about wanting “that uncomplicated, Rachel McAdams love,” which while not a full parallel, will resonate with many LGBTQ viewers who have been told their lives aren’t “normal.” Sort Of begs to differ.
Sort Of is available on HBO Max. Season 1 is available in full and Season 2 is midway through its run with new episodes airing weekly through Dec. 22. Visit www.hbo.com.
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