80’s nostalgia is strong on TV these days, and HBO Max is giving us a glimpse of how that looks from the perspective of our communities. On the heels of Stranger Things bringing back the aesthetics and making the time period cool again, Gordita Chronicles is going back to 1980’s Miami, without the monsters – and focusing on what it means to try to fit in.
The series will premiere on the streaming service on Thursday, June 23rd. The logline reads as follows:
The year is 1985 and Cucu “Gordita” Castelli (Olivia Goncalves) has just said goodbye to all of her friends and family in Santo Domingo. She has moved to Miami with her marketing-executive father Víctor (Juan Javier Cardenas), bold and vivacious mother Adela (Diana Maria Riva), and status-obsessed older sister Emilia (Savannah Nicole Ruiz).
While living in America is far from what they imagined — “The song said ‘America the Beautiful,” Cucu says, “I think they oversold it” — the Castellis are determined to take charge of their strange new world. The coming-of-age series is about family, opportunity, love, resilience, and boldly defying the status quo in pursuit of the “American Dream.”
Diana Maria Riva, Juan Javier Cardenas, Savannah Nicole Ruiz, Noah Rico, Cosette Hauer, and Dascha Polanco also star in the show. The first episode was directed by producer Eva Longoria, with Zoe Saldana also set as an executive producer.
With the TV landscape looking so thin of entertainment from our communities for our communities, it’s great to be able to invest in Gordita Chronicles. Just as it’s great to be able to invest in Cucu, a girl who is more than what she looks like, and who is coming to reclaim the term gordita, with a smile.
Gordita Chronicles premieres on HBO Max on June 23rd.
