Net-flix-ations

I was a devoted Netflix subscriber for more than twenty years (starting with DVDs by mail), but I’ve become rather disenchanted, finding their programming not worth more than a few months viewing out of a year, and their streaming quite glitchy.  Nonetheless, it’s worth returning occasionally to salvage a few winners out of their nonstop flood of mediocrity.

Baby Reindeer (MC-88) is the most buzzworthy of new Netflix shows (and thankfully, it’s no Squid Game or Bridgerton, or any of that ilk).  Many’s the comedian who turns “their” worst traumas or embarrassments into a routine, and there are quite a number who have spun out impressive solo performance pieces.  But I credit Richard Gadd for digging deep and developing a 7-episode series about his interactions with a woman who stalked him, an older man who abused him, and a trans woman whom he loved, but not as much as he hated himself.  Very dark, but quite funny, with a message about empathy that transcends the seamy material.  He also enlists actors who make the most of their roles, notably Jessica Gunning and Nava Mau.  Though he narrates and stars himself, it’s telling that he enlisted two women directors to split the episodes, for something other than a guy perspective on his experiences.
 
One Day (MC-76) has some of the appeal of Normal People, in charting over time the relationship between a young, mismatched sort-of-couple.  And has the appeal of Amika Modi, who made such an impression in This Is Going to Hurt and here makes a refreshingly diverse rom-com heroine.  Her foil is Leo Woodall, who is certainly cute, and charming when he wants to be, but lacks soulfulness of a Paul Mescal.   They meet at graduation in Edinburgh in 1988, and each of the 14 more-or-less half-hour episodes shows them coming together (or apart) on that date in succeeding years, in differing places and situations.  They go through various humorous and dramatic changes, beyond the question of will they or won’t they, until a swerve into Love Story territory (“Love means always having to say you’re sorry”).  It’s a satisfying binge, if not an indelible experience.
 
Just before I paused Netflix back in January, I had read a glowing New Yorker profile of Jacqueline Novak and her one-woman performance piece On Your Knees (MC-tbd), so when I resumed NFX that was one of the first shows I watched.  As you might expect, a 97-minute aria on blowjobs is raunchy of course – but in an intellectual, highly-literary way, you understand – delivered with manic energy and stinging wit.  As lascivious as the topic may be, she stalks the stage in torn jeans and a gray t-shirt, and goes for something much deeper than titillation.  Feminist to be sure (though who am I to say?), and oh yes, it’s funny as hell, for anyone not turned off by the subject matter. 
 
Another female comic that kept me laughing was Rachel Feinstein with her Big Guy comedy special.  The title is what her outer-borough firefighter husband calls her, and with telling impersonations she delineates the cultural clash between a daughter of lefty Jewish intellectuals and the family of her working-class Catholic husband.
 
I stuck around on NFX long enough to see the latest from Richard Linklater, probably my favorite filmmaker over the past thirty years.  Hit Man (MC-82) returns him to Bernie mode, in a true-ish crime comedy based on a Texas Monthly article, with some hot romance added.  Hot indeed in the pairing of Glenn Powell and Adria Arjona.  He’s a mild-mannered psych/philosophy teacher, whose electronics hobby leads to part-time police work with a surveillance team, which in turn leads him to take on the role of a hit man in sting operations.  She is one of his targets, clearly seeking murder for hire, but also lovely and sympathetic.  He lets her go with a bit of kind advice, they meet again by chance, sparks fly, shit hits the fan.  Linklater and Powell, who collaborated on the screenplay, are both Austin TX boys, but shifted the setting to New Orleans, to good and witty effect.  The script gives Powell ample opportunity to show off his acting chops as well as his abs, as he takes on a different hit man persona for each potential client.  Ms. Arjona also has ample opportunity to shape-shift, and give off what I thought of as some Barbara Stanwyck energy.  With so much to delight, I’m not inclined to put forward my quibbles with the ending, but I am inclined to update my woefully out-of-date Linklater career summary [now done].  Score one for Netflix.  And check out this recent NYT interview, through which my temperamental and intellectual affinity with Linklater is highlighted, and in which he neatly ties the ending to his recent documentary Hometown Prison.
 
Nyad (MC-63) boasts a fully-committed performance by Annette Bening as the title character, and a highly-engaging one by Jodie Foster as her coach and right-hand woman, both Oscar-nominated and enough to make the film worth seeing.  Bening does not soften the rough edges of a questionable character on a chimerical quest (to swim from Cuba to Key West), but the film is based on Diana Nyad’s celebrity memoir and feels compelled to conform to all the conventions of the sports film.  Foster humanizes the proceedings and justifies the final realization that an individual’s accomplishment is really a team achievement.  Made by the directing pair of the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo, the film is not superlong, but sometimes seemed as arduous and prolonged as the swim itself.
 
In a similar vein, The Novice (MC-85) follows a hardworking freshman as she tries to crack the varsity rowing team at an elite American university.  It’s obvious that first-time writer-director Lauren Hadaway knows whereof she speaks, and brings long experience as a sound designer to her maiden effort.  Visuals and music conspire to turn competitive sport into something like a psychological horror movie.  Isabelle Fuhrman is excellent as a presidential scholar who works obsessively to overcome her own feelings of not being good enough, which take her down dark paths of self-harm, relieved only by occasional moments of relief and beauty on the water.
 
I take note of two excellent documentaries now appearing on Netflix, though I’ll save comment for a forthcoming round-up of stand-out nonfiction films: Four Daughters (MC-80) and To Kill a Tiger (MC-88).  Netflix is not the invaluable resource it once was, but it still has some high-quality offerings. 
 
Since I stuck around on Netflix for an extra month to see Hit Man, I was finally able to follow up on a friend’s recommendation to watch Top Boy (MC-85), the UK’s answer to The Wire.  So far I’ve only seen the four-episode first season, will definitely watch more and report back.