‘Overcompensating’ (2025) Prime Video Series Review - Benito Skinner’s Breezy Comedy Drama

Prime Video's Overcompensating - created by Benito Skinner, who is also one of the leads - brings raunchiness to the small screen. The sex is steamy, hot, and wild. It's on almost everybody's mind. These are high school kids, so sex for them is the greatest achievement in life - or at least it's a great achievement within the campus boundaries. But the erotic encounters aren't thrown in for just grabbing the eyeballs of a horny audience. These impulses arise when the characters are either at their lowest or under peer pressure from their friends. A boy, very early on, tells Benny (Skinner) that if he doesn't get laid on the first day of college, he will suffer in the company of improv artists. When the guy fails to have sex and is seen going inside the improv building, it feels as if he's going into a dangerous prison. It's an absurdly funny scene, and Overcompensating is filled with more amusing moments, like when film students call The Godfather their favorite film or when a golf cart goes slowly behind a group of college students who are busy dancing. Like every college student in every teen comedy, the characters in Overcompensating try to hang out with the "cool kids" who turn out to be the dumbest people on the planet. There is crudity in the language of the boys, and one of the girls constantly says, "I want [insert whatever's being discussed at the moment]." The former, however, isn't present for just stoking the flames of vulgarity. The obscene, misogynistic language that the "cool kids" use gives Benny a reason for being so reluctant to come out as homosexual. He's surrounded by straight boys who have power since they belong to a secret society whose members get opportunities to build successful careers after completing their college education. Benny wants to be a part of this society, which means he laughs at sexist jokes and cracks them himself to win the approval of other members.

It's established quickly that Benny is so shy, so unconfident, that he lets his parents make decisions for him. His father wants him to be a businessman, so he studies business. What does he actually want to do? He develops a crush on a student named Miles (Rish Shah), which leads him to become a cinephile. He makes an arty short film that really looks like a film student movie. How the movie was made and what sources influenced Benny for this short film are some questions that are not answered in Overcompensating. The first season is all about Benny's realization that the rituals he's doing, and the forced sexism he's exhibiting for the secret society boys, are actually stupid. This is something the viewer realizes instantly, and maybe if the cinephile Benny had made the effort to watch a few teen comedies, he would have arrived at this conclusion quite early. Jonah Hill is one of the executive producers of this series. Benny could have watched Superbad instead of god knows what kind of "art films" that motivated him to make that short film. But Benny finds someone as shy as he is, and she becomes his best friend. I am referring to Carmen (Wally Baram). If Overcompensating is sexy, she is the primary source of the sexiness. Carmen's sex scenes have a strong erotic energy - they almost burn the screen even when they are meant to be clumsy and funny. She's smart and sensitive but tends to undermine her abilities. This is Baram's first acting role as a lead, but she's surprisingly comfortable on the screen. Perhaps it helps that she's working in the genre of comedy (Baram is a stand-up comedian and has worked as a writer on shows like What We Do in the Shadows and Shrinking).

There are moments when Overcompensating goes on the verge of becoming a weepy drama, but it immediately draws itself back from melancholy. For instance, when Carmen injures herself after breaking two bottles, her blood-soaked hands give rise to a shot of a tragic car accident. Benny receives so much love and attention from family members that his sister, Grace (Mary Beth Barone), feels neglected. The boys and the girls and the gays live in different worlds, and go through different experiences, but occupy the same physical space, and the same environment. These distinct circles are unified through a comic mood that renders Overcompensating light, breezy, and pleasurable. There is always a slut-killing game, and a sentient Megan Fox poster around the corner to cheer you up. At one point, Overcompensating winks at the opening scene of Scream 4. However, the one joke that really cracked me up came and went so quickly that I almost thought I'd made it up in my head. It has to do with an email ending with "Sent from my iPhone." Of course, let's not forget Hailee (Holmes), Carmen's roommate, who's so openly weird and openly sexual that anything she does feels natural. Then again, everybody is weird and sexual in the show. It's just that, unlike Hailee, some don't fully accept their weirdness. This is why they end up overcompensating and creating more problems for themselves. I guess, if the series had wanted to preach to the audience, it would have said, "Be like Hailee. Embrace yourself."

Final Score- [7/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times
Note: All 8 episodes are screened for this review.
Premiere Date: May 15, 2025, on Prime Video