Conversations with Friends
カンバセーションズ・ウィズ・フレンズ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A student poet in Dublin begins a secret affair with a married actor, the husband of the writer who has taken her up.
Frances, a student in Dublin, writes poetry and performs it with her best friend and former girlfriend, Bobbi. After an open-mic night they are taken up by Melissa, a writer in her late thirties, who invites them to her house, where they meet her husband, Nick, an actor. Bobbi and Melissa become friends. Frances, guarded and watchful, develops a crush on Nick.
At Melissa's birthday party Frances kisses him. While Melissa is away they sleep together, and a quiet affair begins; Nick tells her that Melissa once cheated on him. Melissa invites the girls to stay with them on holiday in Croatia, and there, at night, Nick comes to Frances's room. Bobbi can see what is happening and is hurt that Frances will not talk about it.
Back in Ireland Frances ends up in hospital with severe pain after her period, then visits her father, whose drinking is getting worse. Nick wants to tell Melissa. At Melissa's book launch Frances is consumed with jealousy watching husband and wife together; she tells Nick she loves him, then leaves. Melissa's agent takes an interest in Frances's writing, and Frances writes a story that draws on her relationship with Bobbi. Then Melissa tells Frances that she wants to find a way for Nick to be with both of them. Frances is diagnosed with endometriosis and tells no one. Nick, after a breakdown, admits he has slept with Melissa, and Frances ends it. Bobbi learns about the story from Melissa and moves out.
Frances rings Melissa in a fury and is told plainly what her behaviour and her writing have done to other people. She sees it. She writes to Bobbi to apologise and to say she loves her, and the two get back together on new terms, committed to each other but not possessive. Then Nick calls her by accident. They talk honestly about why it went wrong, and she tells him about the endometriosis. The series ends, as Sally Rooney's novel does, with Frances telling him: come and get me.
Starring
Alison Oliveras Frances
A guarded student poet in Dublin who begins an affair with a married actor and hides what she feels, and her pain.
Frances’s story
Frances performs her poems with Bobbi. At Melissa's birthday party she kisses Nick, Melissa's husband, and while Melissa is away they sleep together; in Croatia he comes to her room at night. Back home she is taken to hospital in pain after her period. Jealous after Melissa's book launch, she tells Nick she loves him and leaves. She writes a story drawing on Bobbi; she is diagnosed with endometriosis and tells no one. When Nick admits he has slept with Melissa, she ends it, and Bobbi moves out over the story. Melissa tells her plainly what her behaviour and her writing have done. Frances apologises to Bobbi, and they get back together on new terms. Then Nick calls by accident; she tells him about the endometriosis and says: come and get me.
Sasha Laneas Bobbi
Frances's outspoken best friend and former girlfriend, who befriends Melissa and sees more than Frances will admit.
Bobbi’s story
Bobbi performs poetry with Frances, who was once her girlfriend, and after an open-mic night grows close to Melissa. In Croatia she sees what is happening between Frances and Nick, catches him at Frances's door one night, and is hurt that Frances will not talk about it. Back in Dublin she moves in with Frances, grows tired of her jealousy, and still helps her home when she collapses. At a dinner Melissa asks her about the story Frances has written, and Bobbi learns that it draws on her. She moves out. When Frances writes to apologise and says she loves her, Bobbi takes her back on new terms: committed to each other, and not possessive.
Joe Alwynas Nick Conway
Melissa's gentle, depressive actor husband, who falls into an affair with Frances.
Nick Conway’s story
Nick is still married to Melissa, who once cheated on him, when Frances kisses him at Melissa's birthday party. While Melissa is away he asks Frances over, and their affair begins; in Croatia he goes to her room at night. Back in Dublin he comes round to her flat and wants to tell Melissa. When Frances tells him she loves him and walks out, he comes to tell her he loves her too. Then he has a breakdown and admits that he has slept with Melissa; Frances ends it. Some time later, in a bookshop, he calls her by accident. They talk honestly about why it went wrong, and he admits he has always felt a pull to be there for her. She tells him about her endometriosis and asks him to come and get her.
Jemima Kirkeas Melissa
A successful writer in her late thirties who takes up the two students and, once she knows of the affair, proposes a way for Nick to be with both women.
Why it matters
Conversations with Friends is about the conversations people do not have. Frances, clever and guarded, keeps her feelings, her pain and her affair to herself, and the series shows what that silence costs everyone around her. It takes an affair between a student and an older married man seriously without making it a scandal, lets a marriage consider becoming something other than monogamous, and treats the love between two young women as the story's central relationship rather than a phase. It asks, too, what a writer owes the people she writes about. And it put endometriosis on screen: a gynaecologist advised the production, and one woman with the condition told BBC Three it was the first time she had seen it depicted. Its ending, like Sally Rooney's novel, refuses to choose for Frances, leaving her with Bobbi and on the phone to Nick at once.