I’m a chronic overthinker, especially when it comes to love and relationships. I love love – I can’t help it, I grew up watching one too many Disney movies and reading more romance books than most of my peers. Sadly, when it comes to being the protagonist of my own love story, I can’t keep my cool the way the women in the books I read do. I tend to overanalyze everything. The heroines and heroes whose adventures I follow never seem to struggle like I do – falling in love always comes easy for them. Or so I thought until I came across Up Here, a rom-com-type musical starring Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdes set in New York City in the late 90s.
The Hulu series follows Lindsay (played by Whitman), a shy small-town girl who blows up her comfortable yet boring suburban life and moves to New York City to follow her dream of being a writer. And Miguel (Valdés — who by the way, does an impressive job as a romantic lead), a video game designer turned finance bro who has given up his dream job to get his “dream” life.
Their lives could not be more different from each other’s… Well, except for the fact that both of them are sometimes overwhelmed by their mistakes quite literally singing to them. For Lindsay, it’s her childhood best friend who betrayed her and her overbearing parents haunting her mind. For Miguel, it’s his mom, the guy his fiancée cheated on him with, and his old childhood crush, who very publicly turned him down. While the premise of the show – two young people falling in love in the ’90s in one of the most famous cities in the world – might sound like a bit of a bore, Whitman and Valdés make it unique by imbuing it with the fear and anxiety that only chronic overthinkers and hopeless romantics know personally.
After all, it’s chronic overthinkers who know what it feels like to want love so badly that you’re too scared to get close to it. Much like Lindsay and Miguel, I too have been my worst enemy and biggest obstacle when it comes to finding the happily ever after I so desperately crave — being vulnerable in a world where memories (both good and bad), fears, fantasies, and past mistakes plague my mind is no easy task.
The central love story in Up Here is elevated by its amazing musical numbers (yes, it’s also a musical, a truly winning way to tell a love story, if you ask me!), which highlight the main characters’ internal struggles between opening up to a new partner (and potentially a new heartbreak) or surrendering to their fears and staying in their lonely, yet safe comfort zone. The songs, which hit just the right nerve (and note) every single time, were written by Kristen Anderson-López and Robert López, the same composers who were responsible for Frozen’s iconic soundtrack.
The first episode wasn’t even over when I had already added the whole soundtrack to my playlist. Something about knowing that the characters in a show feel the same way I do and hear the same things I hear in my head when I’m falling in love felt so incredibly refreshing and liberating. Sadly, as with many Latinx-led shows nowadays, Up Here was canceled after its first season. However, the eight episodes that we did get were a breath of fresh air that all anxious overthinkers should watch, if only to experience that we are in fact, not alone (like Miguel finally realizes during one of the show’s musical numbers).
