That’s the major thrust of “Conversations with Friends”’s 12 half-hour episodes, many of which are directed by “Normal People” director/EP Lenny Abrahamson (“ Room”). Frances is immediately drawn to the latter, and before you can say “We saw you from across the bar and we liked your vibe,” Frances and Nick are engaged in an illicit affair that threatens to both open up Frances’ heart and irrevocably damage their relationships to both Melissa and Bobbi. She’s popular, settled, and married to Nick ( Joe Alwyn), a dashing but brooding actor. Her best friend is Bobbi ( Sasha Lane), a brash, opinionated American who just so happened to date Frances three years ago they broke things off amicably, but the specter of their relationship lingers, charged in their every interaction and joint spoken-word poetry they perform around Dublin.īut things escalate for the both of them when they’re approached at one of their shows by Melissa ( Jemima Kirke), an older writer who finds herself drawn by them. An aspiring writer from an impoverished family-her parents are divorced, her father a low-functioning alcoholic-she’s the kind of person who’d rather keep the world at a distance than run the risk of getting hurt engaging with it. Based on Rooney’s debut novel ( Normal People was her second), “Conversations with Friends” puts us right back in the campus of Trinity College Dublin, this time saddling us with perpetual wallflower Frances ( Alison Oliver, a Lir Academy graduate just like “Normal People”’s Paul Mescal).

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