Australian comedy drama Bump has just dropped on iPlayer. It's about an ambitious teenage girl who has a surprise baby and the complications that arise for two families,
Year 11 student Olympia (‘Oly’) Chalmers-Davis (Nathalie Morris) knows exactly where she is going but finds her life irrevocably changed when she collapses in agony and is stunned to discover she is in labour and the father is not her boyfriend.
Set in and around an inner-city high school and following the main characters home, Bump explores unplanned motherhood and the sudden onset of adulthood, unwelcome new relatives, and unintended consequences coupled with differing expectations of family obligations and dynamics.
The cast also features Claudia Karvan as Angie Chalmers, Angus Sampson as Dom Chalmers, Carlos Sanson Jr as Santiago Hernandez, Safia Arain as Reema, Ioane Saula as Vince, Peter Thurnwald as Lachie, Ricardo Scheihing-Vasquez as Matias Henandez and Paula Garcia as his wife, Rosa.
The show first went out in Australia at the start of 2021 and got great reviews.
Meg Watson in the Guardian called it: "compelling and well-crafted. Both Oly and Angie are funny and emotionally complex characters, and Karvan delivers an exceptional, understated performance."
Time Out's Stephen A Russell wrote: "Bump is wonderfully grounded in real life while still delighting with the unexpected, such as a glorious moment at the opening of episode two, which makes a nod to the classic naked-at-school nightmare with a baby-bump-in-class panic dream. Bump shows that there’s no need for caricatures when just sticking to the unvarnished truth of the oh-so-woke Gen Z is plenty ripe with comedy."
The Sydney Morning Herald said that the show delivers: "There is, though, a lot to like about Bump. Morris is a real find, bringing Oly’s mix of shock, determination, optimism and fragility fully to life. Karvan is good, as always, nailing the competing instincts of a parent horrified by her child’s choices but determined to support them anyway. And the show scores big on diversity – among classmates, the messily extended Hernandez clan, and even the behind-the-camera talent – in a way that never seems forced."
Screen Hub compared it to Booksmart and added: "It’s a sweetly satisfying watch for its melodramatic focus on emotions; but it’s sharper and smarter than other Australian dramas that use comedy as a spoonful of sugar to help the woke medicine go down."
