# Absolute Beginners (2023)

> Two childhood best friends spend their last seaside summer before film school as an aspiring athlete stirs unfamiliar desires between them.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/148280

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 46 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, romance
- Network: Netflix
- Cast: Martyna Byczkowska, Bartłomiej Deklewa, Jan Sałasiński, Paulina Krzyżańska, Katarzyna Warnke, Piotr Witkowski, Anna Krotoska, Andrzej Konopka
- TMDB rating: 7.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27688981/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: none
- Tone: wistful, sincere, nostalgic, hazy, intimate, melancholic

## Synopsis

Absolute Beginners (2023) is a Polish national-television coming of age miniseries created for Netflix, a six-episode limited series with forty-six minute episodes. Lena Głowacka (Martyna Byczkowska) and her childhood best friend Niko (Bartłomiej Deklewa) spend what they believe is their final seaside summer before they part ways for film school. Their carefree routine of swimming, idling along the coast and making amateur films starts to crack when an aspiring athlete, Igor Tymczenko (Jan Sałasiński), arrives and ignites unfamiliar desires that neither of them quite knows how to name. The engine of the story is the slow unsettling of a lifelong friendship, shown through small confessions, shifting alliances and the quiet pull of a new attraction. Each episode moves through long afternoons and late nights by the water, where jealousy, longing and the fear of endings gather like weather. The tone is sincere and wistful, with a hazy summer warmth that never quite hides the ache of growing up. Fans of Skam, Heartstopper and Sex Education will find resonance in its frank portrait of teenage intimacy, friendship and first desire.

## Shows like Absolute Beginners

- [The Red Band Society (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/56806)
- [I Told Sunset About You (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/89245)
- [Elite Short Stories: Nadia Guzmán (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/104872)
- [We Children from Bahnhof Zoo (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/96426)
- [Don't Say No (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/106427)
- [Summertime (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/84299)
- [Scheda (2025)](https://ember.film/tv/182925)
- [SKAM Italia (2018)](https://ember.film/tv/67270)
- [Benefits with Friends (2024)](https://ember.film/tv/143316)
- [Together with Me (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/63913)

---

Site overview: https://ember.film/llms.txt