I Am Hannah Is A Heartbreaking Ode To Single Women In Their 30s

There’s a scene in last night’s I Am Hannah that’ll probably make you sob. Hannah (played by Gemma Chan), is a thirtysomething single woman. She goes to meet a friend who has recently had a baby. Their interaction is pleasant enough on the surface, but the gentle air kisses they coolly exchange across the coffee shop table are very telling.

There’s a familiar awkwardness between the two of them. One friend has reached one of the biggest milestones that society bestows on us (becoming a mother) and the other can do little more than sit, watch and pretend not to be bothered by feeling left out (for not yet becoming a mother too).

"We have a natural inclination to compare," Chan tells Refinery29 at a roundtable interview. "Of course you’re happy for your friends, but it does make you think about your own life. Have I made the right choice? She’s so happy doing that, am I happy? And it’s really tricky." The focus of the final instalment of Channel 4’s three-part miniseries follows Hannah as she ambles through the pressures that come with being a woman at an age where if people aren’t asking when you’re getting married, they’ll likely be questioning when you’re going to have kids. And though this is familiar conversational territory for many of us, seeing the weight of it hit Hannah in this unremarkable catch-up with a friend is heartbreakingly poignant.

"I feel really good, really happy, quite contented," Hannah’s friend coos with her exceptionally well behaved newborn in her arms. She goes on to tell Hannah that she didn’t expect to feel the rush of love that everyone talks about, "but it’s all true". The baby is great, her husband is great and she herself is great. There’s little more for Hannah to do than to say she’s happy for her, but the repressed pain in her face as she looks down at her mate’s baby hits almost too hard. Hannah cries on the way home and gets ready for another "swipe right date" that you get the impression she doesn’t really want to go on.

We see Hannah go on a fair few of these dates. A couple of them are awful (one guy shouts at her for wasting his time before storming out of a public park, another sexually assaults her outside the bar toilets) and one turns out to be promising but not necessarily the type of relationship Hannah is looking for at the time. Despite our objective understanding as an audience that Hannah can do whatever she wants, with whoever she wants, whenever she feels ready, woven into the almost mechanical function of online dating is the endgame: having children. It's a pressure that Hannah's acutely aware of and Hannah’s mother, who is desperate for grandchildren, isn’t shy about reminding her that the fertility clock is ticking. Is it something that Hannah wants? Not yes, and not no. But is it something that Hannah feels she should be working towards anyway? I think we all feel the answer to that one in our ovaries.

Chan, who co-created this episode in the series, explained that though she and series creator Dominic Savage had long intended to produce something specifically on motherhood, fertility and societal pressures on women, the journey to the final narrative took a couple of detours. "The initial idea was that it would be a woman who wasn't in a relationship but was absolutely certain that she wanted to have a child and goes down the route of artificially inseminating herself and having a baby on her own," Chan explained.

"Then it became a woman who was a bit more ambivalent about the idea of having a child and then it became more towards where it ended up – she finds out that she isn't able to."

Viewers were struck by just how much this familiar yet seldom explored reality hit home, with some tweeting about how relatable the narrative was and others highlighting that it might've been a little too emotionally affecting for women struggling with the pressure around fertility and relationship status in their 30s and beyond.

"Well, that was basically every single childless woman I know, including myself," said one viewer. "I'm proud of how strong we all are, putting on a relentlessly brave face to a world that seems designed to make us feel that we're failing." One of the many users who found the episode challenging said: "I Am Hannah is so difficult to watch because it's so relatable and scarily accurate about dating and modern apps!"

Alongside the outpouring of responses from women who felt well reflected, some viewers were quick to point out that not all narratives surrounding single women over the age of 30 have to be completely negative, despite society's insistence that being without partner or child spells bad news. Thankfully, even though we don't see Hannah's future play out, Chan has a good feeling about where her story would have gone beyond those final scenes when she decides to keep moving forward alone, with herself as the only priority. "She has more freedom at the end than she did at the beginning," Chan said. "She feels freer in her mind. She's not completely okay. But she's on her way to becoming okay. That's where I feel she is, it's not resolved but she's going to be okay. I hope that she's going to be okay."