You made a show worth watching. There have been a few, like House of Cards and … and …
Is that it?
Now I haven’t watched every Netflix show out there, but I have more fractional-progress bars on TV show thumbnails than could name. Most of them are poorly written/acted/shot/directed/paced, unfortunately. Then they release Maniac, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga of True Detective (SEASON ONE), Beasts of No Nation, Sin Nombre, fame. It stars half of Jonah Hill (nice work, man!) and Emma Stone, with a great supporting cast including Justin Theroux, Sonoya Mizuno, and Sally Field. It’s currently labeled as a “limited series,” which means there isn’t planned to be subsequent seasons to further dilute and destroy a great accomplishment.
Firstly, Cary Fukunaga is becoming one of my favorite directors. He’s a lot like Alex Garland in that he doesn’t want to revisit anything he does with sequels, but, unlike Garland, he genre hops like crazy. He’s done sci-fi, romance, police procedural, dark drama, to name a few. He’s also heavily involved with the development of the project he’s on, not just a hired gun.
What is it?
Maniac is a bit odd to classify. Set in a near future that feels more like the 80’s injected with futuristic ideas/tech, it’s part science fiction, part comedy, part indie drama, part Tarantino-gore-fest (sorta). However you want to classify it, it’s done damn well. The performances are great across the board. We see Jonah Hill stretch his acting muscles like never before, Justin Theroux become wackier than ever, and Sonoya Mizuno given the chance to finally act, and it’s great!
Spanning ten episodes of oddly-inconsistent duration, the show introduces our two protagonists (Hill and Stone) in their current day to day. Both mentally and emotionally damaged (and broke), they decide to join a pharmaceutical trial for an experimental drug to make some cash. That’s when things get weird. Nearly every episode consists of Hill and Stone in a different setting, playing different characters that are vessels to illustrate and force them to confront their issues. The in-between moments are filled with the antics of the supporting cast, who deal with their own personal problems in the lab, overseeing the whole thing.
Why you should watch it
It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Genre-bending with a collection of fantastic settings, Maniac is constantly surprising in a myriad of ways. The art direction, the story, the performances. I found myself wanting to see where Fukunaga and crew would take me next. Most important, it creates a compelling arc with two compelling characters at the center of it–and their various iterations. While Hill’s character is mostly comatose, in the real world, and Stone’s is, at times, a facsimile of the sassy/quirky female we’ve seen in various degrees before, we don’t spend much time with them. We’re treated to the multitude of characters they become in their own minds.
How long will it take?
This is something I always ask myself when delving into show or movie I haven’t seen. Will I be grabbed by the first scene? The first episode? I was hooked by the first episode even though we don’t get into the heart of the story until episode three (episode one introduces us to Hill’s character, and episode two introduces us to Stone’s). If your interest wasn’t as piqued as mine after the first episode, give it three before you give up, but I hope you don’t. It’s worth it. I promise.
It can’t be all great, can it?
Nothing is perfect. It’s not a fast-paced show in the least, but I don’t think it needs to be. Its pacing reflects the psyches of the protagonists. There are episodes of break-neck action, but also episodes of deliberate and meditative quality. It feels more like an 8+ hour movie than something that was designed to be purely episodic in nature with meticulously orchestrated structure. And that’s okay. Each episode has something to like, something to pull you further in. It’s worth the ride. It also has a great single-take action sequence toward the end, and I’m not talking the bullshit-faked-with-pans-to-black one in the first season of Daredevil. Don’t even get me started on the Marvel stuff.
The trailer is a bit misleading, but here it is anyway.
If you’ve seen and enjoyed it or hated it, please let me know in the comments.