Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The 7 Lives of Lea’ on Netflix, a Nutty French Series About a Teen Stuck in a Body Swap/Time Travel Combo Premise

French Netflix series The 7 Lives of Lea likely hopes to take two high concepts to the next level, combining body-swapping and time travel into the same premise, like it’s Back to the Vice Versa Future or something. Raika Hazanavicius plays a high-schooler who’s 17 going on 30 years ago: One fateful day, she finds a cold-case corpse along the river, and the next day she wakes up in the dead person’s body. (I’ll lead the chorus, feel free to join in: I HATE when that happens!) But as the title implies, it’s not a permanent state – she’s going to do this seven times in seven episodes, and maybe the show will entice us to go along with it.

THE 7 LIVES OF LEA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The camera follows a river in a sun-drenched canyon where flocks of teenagers dance, drink and generally let rip.

The Gist: “My name is Lea. I’m 17, I’ll never get my high school diploma, and I hate vodka,” goes the voiceover. And yet there’s Lea (Hazanavicius), pouring vodka down her throat. Her internal monologue continues: I feel alone among all these people who seem to be worry-free, or are just faking it. She wobbles over to the resident drug guy and asks him for a pill. He refuses. “You’re too wasted” is his assessment, and he ain’t wrong. But Lea pickpockets the entire baggie of drugs from him. A bit later, she’s alone and howling into the sky, crying, holding the handful of pills in her hand like she might just take them all, then stumbling and dropping them all and falling down and spotting a skeletal hand, a bracelet on its wrist, jutting out of the sand.

Lea’s parents pick her up from the police station. Her mom chews her out and her dad just remains quiet. “Their specialty is silence,” Lea’s voiceover says of them. She goes into her bedroom, slips into bed, falls asleep and wakes up with a penis, which she slams into a door jam in her subsequent delirium. This isn’t something that happens every day, waking up with different genitalia, although I think Lea is about to prove that assertion wrong. She/he finds a bracelet – the bracelet – in her/his (I think I’ll just use “they” or “their” from here on) stuff. They are Ismael (Khalil Ben Gharbia), a teenage Arab boy with a younger brother and parents – and Ismael is indeed that dead body.

He and his family work on an apple orchard but Ismael-with-Lea’s-brain sneaks off to try to figure out what the hell is going on in this reality. They slackjaw when they see a T2-coming-soon-to-a-theater-near-you billboard (please note: time-travel movie!). It’s 1991, for chrissake. They try to figure out how to use a payphone but it’s a comedy of errors. Then a woman grabs Ismael and drags them to the audition their brother was talking about earlier. Ismael is a bassist and singer – and the younger versions of Lea’s mom and dad are the guitarist and drummer, respectively. Mind. Blown! Her parents weren’t always boring assholes! And here they are, punkish-grunge teenagers! Nobody said “WTF” back then, but we did say it without abbreviating it. Either way, it’s what we and Ismael/Lea are saying now.

Eventually, Ismael’s dad picks them up and chews them out for ditching work. They’re in a precarious situation and can’t afford to lose their jobs. The boss’ son is a real creep and calls Ismael a “slave,” and yes, that’s racist, grossly so. They find Ismael’s notebook and wrap it in a plastic bag and bury it, then go home to shower and find out what happens when you do this and then that with Ismael’s boyparts. They slump to the ground in ecstasy and then Lea wakes up in her own bed with her usual breasts and stuff and it all feels like a crazy dream. But it’s not – the notebook is right where they buried it. She attends a public meeting about the body and declares without a hint of evidence that it is, indeed, Ismael, who’s been missing for a long time. She’s also convinced that his death shouldn’t be considered suicide, although she and the authorities have yet to confirm anything. She goes home and hits the sack and then wakes up the next morning in the Parting Shot.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Delinquent Outer Banks teens be mindtrippin’ like Russian Doll crossed with, probably, That ’90s Show (which hasn’t debuted yet, but maybe will soon?).

Our Take: The first episode of Lea is taut, entertaining, absorbing and sets up explorations of teen mental health and racism within its far-out premise. (And badass ’90s rock, as it boasts tracks by L7 and Sonic Youth, and C&C Music Factory is the butt of a joke.) Some of its stabs at comedy can be a little clunky, but they’re still reasonably effective, and not so silly that they undermine the seriousness of Ismael’s sad fate, or the social disparities that are key to the series’ dramatic dynamic.

The series hinges on two core mysteries: How did Ismael die? And, what in the living hell is triggering Lea’s journey through a conglomeration of two sci-fi concepts? This episode sets up her clear need for direction and purpose in life, which may be kindled by fresh perspectives. She considers suicide early on, in her wildly inebriated and vulnerable state, and this is the type of experience that might pull her out of despair – or plunge her into insanity, a possible fate if the hows and whys of all this go unexplained. Speaking of which, one can’t help but wonder how the scripters will write their way out of this situation, another component likely to binge all seven episodes. The tone seems too lively to go too dark, but if it keeps us guessing, that’s a good thing.

Sex and Skin: So far, just some out-of-frame self-fondling.

Parting Shot: “F–, it’s happening again,” goes Lea’s voiceover: She’s now in her younger mom’s body, who has a vinyl copy of Dinosaur Jr’s “You’re Living All Over Me” on her nightstand, which means she’s cool as f—.

Sleeper Star: Lea’s name is in the title, but Gharbia has the tricky role, playing her mind in his body – and does so with some pretty effective physical comedy.

Most Pilot-y Line: Lea sure seems to get what she desires: “I just wanted to find a way to feel alive.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. The first 40 minutes of The 7 Lives of Lea isn’t exactly original, but it shows considerable upside in its strong performances, ambitious storytelling and modest visual panache.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.