The Undoing, Shithouse, and reboots and reunions
Coming undone and coming of age, plus culture notes about cashing in on nostalgia
Hello!
On this week’s episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss The Undoing (2020) and Shithouse (2020), two works about—in a sense—exploring who you are as a person, whether that's a wealthy therapist mentally unraveling or a college freshman missing home.
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01:36 The Undoing, an HBO limited series that's currently airing, is the latest in the genre of television exploring the troubled inner and outer workings of rich white women whose seemingly perfect lives are disrupted by tragedy or violence.
NOTE: We only talk about The Undoing up through episode 3, so feel free to listen/read without major spoilers for recent stuff.
As Naomi Fry writes for the New Yorker, “the show is the latest in a long tradition devoted to examining the shadowy psychic crevices of high-strung, upper-class white women”—think Big Little Lies (made by the same creator of this show), Sharp Objects, Little Fires Everywhere, etc.
The 2014 novel on which this series is based apparently features primarily Jewish characters, and the main couple aren’t “nearly this rich,” according to a Washington Post interview with author Jean Hanff Korelitz. But the TV version is WASP-y glory all the way, very white, very classic Park/Madison Ave. Upper East Side. Grace (played by Nicole Kidman) and her husband (Hugh Grant) are the picture of privilege challenged and titanium-reinforced, over and over again. All the scenes highlighting socioeconomic disparity—between the residents of palatial penthouses and the maids who serve them, between private-school kids and their scholarship peers—raise a question: Is The Undoing a skewering of the life of the 1 percent (à la Succession), or “empty lifestyle porn,” as Fry calls it?
In the latter version, the gruesome murder of a young, low-income mom named Elena—an apparently unwell and seductive woman coded as Latinx, although the actress is actually Italian—pales in comparison to the tragedy that the main character Grace’s life is becoming. Jo Livingstone writes for the New Republic:
The story’s sense of moral unease is heightened by the fact that the camera spends all its time exulting in Kidman’s face, while Elena—the “real” victim, if the story has one—falls to the plot’s wayside. The question of the murderer’s identity quickly pales into relative insignificance as the parallel blow of Jonathan’s infidelity hits Grace’s life with more force.
With half the show still left to go, it’s hard to tell whether or not these points will be dealt with deliberately, or whether or not they’ll reveal themselves to be weak writing. Guess we’ll find out!
15:57 Shithouse, a film made by and starring a majorly talented 23-year-old, is deft, emotionally honest, and painfully relatable in its depiction of college life and feeling like you don't quite fit in.
NOTE: Shithouse is available for rental on Amazon Video, YouTube, etc. I know it’s a pain that we’re recommending a film you have to rent, but it’s worth the price imho.
Written, directed, co-edited by, and starring 23-year-old Cooper Raiff, this film—which won the SXSW Grand Jury prize—is about college and feelings and coming of age.
The main character Alex, played by Raiff, is a sensitive, lonely freshman who spends an unforgettable night—not like that! well, only a little—with his resident advisor Maggie, played by Dylan Gelula. Alex, who is having trouble finding his way during his first year away from home, doesn’t understand why the people around him aren’t interested in doing more with each other than drinking and partying and hooking up. Maggie, on the other hand, thinks that people don’t owe you anything, you shouldn’t expect anything; it’s up to you to make an effort. The answer, of course, is maybe somewhere in the middle.
What we liked so much about this film is how emotionally vulnerable and relatable it is. Here at Criticism Is Dead, we love our moms—in a full, undying, maybe-a-little-codependent way—and it was striking to see that represented onscreen, let alone by a straight teenage guy. He calls his mom and sister regularly, he tells them he loves them, he cries on the phone with them. To us, coming of age is as much about our changing relationships with our parents as it is about finding ourselves or whatever. And coming of age doesn’t stop after high school; it continues through college and beyond, for the rest of our lives, really.
Here’s a nice BW/DR interview with Raiff, btw.
28:00 Plus, culture notes about a buzzy sneak preview of the Gossip Girl reboot, and the nostalgia-heavy era of remakes, reunions, and remixes.
Bonus links
RIP Meme’s Diner in Brooklyn :(
You would never guess from this dek that this is one of the most boring Vows ever: “Jonathan Morris and Kaitlyn Folmer met at the Vatican. He was a priest. Some things changed along the way.”
How accurate was The Good Lord Bird? (We talked about this show last week!)
Speaking of things we’ve talked about recently:
Plugging this short recommendation for “fanfiction” written by me for The Drift!!
XOXO,
Jenny
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Some credits:
Music: REEKAH
Artwork and design: Sara Macias and Andrew Liu
Special thanks: Dan Geneen