Sterling Point Review: It Gets Better When It Stops Trying So Hard

This review is based on a viewing of the first four episodes of Sterling Point. It contains light spoilers but no major plot revelations.

Sterling Point is Prime Video’s latest YA dramedy, a breezy family mystery that puts the mellow in melodrama. The series initially strains so hard to be charming that its characters feel more like punchlines than people, but it hits its stride once it understands that sincerity is its greatest asset.

Our entry point is 17-year-old Annie (Ella Rubin), a type-A, tightly wound, overachiever.

Annie and her twin brother Connor (Keen Ruffalo) live in Manhattan with their widowed adoptive father, Steven (Jay Duplass). 

When the grandfather they never knew dies and leaves them Sterling Point, an island in Ontario’s rural Muskoka region, Annie discovers that Steven has been hiding letters her grandfather sent her.

Determined to learn about the family she never knew, she travels to the island, where she encounters Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle), a surly tomboy, and they quickly realize that, although they’ve never met, they share a deep connection.

That setup gives Sterling Point plenty of natural emotional tension. Early on, however, the writers aren’t willing to trust it.

For example, we're meant to believe that Annie, who has Ivy League aspirations, doesn’t know that Canada is only a short flight from New York. She also treats the seaplane that takes her to the island with the same level of awe one would have seeing a living dinosaur. 

In the first two episodes, the writers push too hard for the joke at the expense of creating characters who feel authentic. By treating Annie as a delivery system for punchlines, the series weakens the emotional foundation it needs once the major revelations begin to land.

Ramona is flattened by the same impulse. Although she is more serious than Annie, she initially feels like a collection of familiar attributes: the tough, independent girl who refuses to let anyone get close.

The story takes a turn for the better in episodes three and four, when Sterling Point stops trying so hard, lets the dramatic moments breathe and allows the characters to grow into themselves naturally.

The show is most compelling when its characters are vulnerable and real with one another, even when the stakes are low. Rubin and Hoeferle have the chops to make those moments land.

A quiet scene where Ramona swims with Oona, her unrequited crush, and ties the back of her swimsuit when it comes loose, carries far more emotional weight than watching Annie trying to paddle across a lake in a canoe with two large suitcases. 

The show's best moments are less about the underlying mystery than about watching teens on the cusp of adulthood, desperate to appear as if they have it all figured out, while struggling with the fact that they still feel lost.

The island’s supporting characters, particularly Oona (Bo Bragason) and Sully (Nikko Angelo Hinayo), possess the easy, winning charm that the early episodes struggle to manufacture.

Sterling Point is a show that gives a lot without asking too much of the viewer. 

For every revelation about the island’s tangled past, there is another scene of teenagers partying in a luxurious vacation home.

It’s appropriate that the show debuts in August because it’s the television equivalent of a beach read. 

It’s light, charming and inoffensive, with just enough dramatic heft to keep you from disconnecting entirely from the plot. It may not become your next YA obsession, but it makes an appealing late-summer fling. 

Prime Video will release all eight episodes of season one on August 5. 

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