What to watch on Netflix: Julie and the Phantoms is full of bops and heart
By Sabrina Reed
Sometimes all you need to relax is some uplifting pop rock and a series with a whole lot of heart. Netflix’s Julie and the Phantoms has that in spades.
Hey, Netflix watchers! Do you need an escape? A little feel-good magic to help settle out the ups and downs of 2020? It can be hard keeping up with the heaps of bad this year has doled out. Hard on the heart, harder on the mind, and hardest on the soul. If you need a laugh, if you need some hope, ut the grimdark prestige television schedule away for a bit and tune into Dan Cross and David Hoge’s Julie and the Phantoms, a musical comedy-drama executive produced by Kenny Ortega.
We’re about to slide into the spookiest month of the year. Most people are gearing up to watch their favorite horror films and Halloween classics but not every ghost story needs to be scary. Sometimes the tale of a trio of ghosts and the living girl they make a band with can be just what hits the spot.
Julie and the Phantoms is a series with a big heart that centers on Julie Molina (Madison Reyes), a teen girl who is struggling to find her way after her mother has passed. She loves music, but it was a talent she shared with her mom. They would sing and write songs together, and without her, creating music hurts. It hurts so much that Julie nearly walks away from her gift. But after she plays the CD of Sunset Curve, a ’90s band she’d never heard of, Julie’s life is turned wonderfully upside down when three members of the group appear in front of her.
Luke (Charles Gillespie), Alex (Owen Patrick Joyner), and Reggie (Jeremy Shada) died in 1995 after eating tainted hotdogs. They’ve spent 25 years in the afterlife, but it only felt like a few minutes to them. So imagine their surprise when they end up in their old garage with a teen girl yelling her head off at their arrival.
Once the quartet gets past their bumpy introduction to one another, they quickly become each other’s second chances. Sunset Curve reignites Julie’s passion for music, and through Julie, the boys are able to manifest allowing them to be seen by alive people as long as they’re playing their instruments.
What makes Julie and the Phantoms great–besides the songs that will have you singing along and dancing–is how much it’s reminiscent of the old Disney original movies. As a millennial, I have long since left the house of mouse’s channel as a regular viewer, but I remember when most of its roster was appointment television.
At their core, those movies were packed with enough sunshine and lightness to get you smiling, but they retained an honesty to them that could be seen in the writing. They were magic and watching Julie’s adventures with Sunset Curve brings to mind the same good feelings Disney original movies used to carry with them, making them memorable and worth multiple watches.
There’s also the added elements of a Latina in the lead role and the inclusion of a love interest for Alex in the form of Boo Boo Stewart as Willie, a skater ghost who teaches him the ins and outs of ghost life.
Julie and the Phantoms is feel-good television at its best. It’s a series that indulges its love of music, laughably lame jokes, friendship, family, and the way people connect over shared experiences. If you want to warm your heart, relax your mind, and feed your soul, we recommend letting Julie and the boys take you on a rock and roll fueled ride.
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