The Curse review: Nathan Fielder’s new show is bizarre and brilliant

Few issues are extra irksome than the up to date impulse (I feel we will blame it on Misplaced) to decode each TV present as if it’s a puzzle to be solved as an alternative of a narrative to be savored. However typically an in depth studying is the purpose. It’s how creators pressure audiences to lean in, put aside the cellphone, and immerse themselves in making an attempt to determine what’s occurring. The Curse is a lean-in present if ever there was one.

Created by Benny Safdie (one-half of the Uncut Gems filmmaking duo) and evil comedic genius Nathan Fielder, and starring the pair alongside the inimitable Emma Stone, The Curse is … a drama? But in addition a comedy. And type of a satirical tackle HGTV-style house-flipping exhibits, besides it’s additionally about homeland rights in northern New Mexico, but additionally gentrification, and marriage. Squint and another stuff exhibits up, perhaps: Judaism, mysticism, ethics in documentary, fashionable environmentalism, responsible liberalism, and different really undefinable swivels that I, having watched the entire collection, can’t cease fascinated with. A colleague just lately referred to as me Vox’s “resident Nathan Fielder whisperer” — in all probability as a result of I filed round 6,000 words on The Rehearsal, his mystifying six-episode HBO miniseries that aired in the summertime of 2022 — and even I’ve been scratching my head about The Curse.

In a great way, although. There’s not an excessive amount of I can or ought to say concerning the collection’ specifics, which unfolds throughout 10 roughly hour-long episodes (and will probably be launched weekly). To totally get pleasure from it, although, it’s useful to know the assorted sandboxes through which the creators are taking part in.

Richard Foreman Jr./A24/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME

The setting, for example, poses some intriguing questions. Although the story is fictional, it’s set within the northern New Mexican metropolis of Española, not removed from Santa Fe, and largely shot round there. Whereas the latter is a tiny and roughly gentrified metropolis the place among the nation’s richest folks stay, the previous is extra working-class, a various metropolis whose inhabitants contains American Indians in addition to descendants of Spanish settlers. It’s additionally value noting {that a} main employer in Española is Los Alamos Nationwide Laboratory, the place the Manhattan Mission was developed — an attention-grabbing information level for a present that’s out the identical yr as Oppenheimer.

The Española setting and the manufacturing’s alternative to search out its solid largely in New Mexico recommend a raft of points round which The Curse revolves. There’s the interplay between native pueblos and their land rights and the lengthy historical past of encroachment on native rights, significantly by white Individuals. In The Curse, that turns into a telescoping metaphor; gentrification of the type the characters interact in is simply the most recent section in a really outdated story.

There’s additionally the difficulty of nuclear vitality prompt by proximity to Los Alamos, which could be environmentally pleasant or damaging, relying on the way it’s harnessed. That’s an attention-grabbing layer in a present that explores how environmental consciousness could be directed — or misdirected — in ways in which have deep unintended results on less-affluent communities.

However the two characters on the present’s middle aren’t missing for cash. Asher and Whitney Siegel (performed by Fielder and Stone) are a married couple with deep pockets due to Whitney’s actual property baron dad and mom (Corbin Bernsen and Constance Shulman). Because the present opens, Asher and Whitney are filming a pilot for an HGTV present they name Fliplanthropy, through which they construct energy-efficient “passive” properties that can entice prosperous consumers to Española. The couple are good liberal-thinking folks, which implies they’re conscious of what their venture may imply for the city’s residents; to defend their work, they’re scrambling for methods to boost the usual of dwelling throughout the board within the metropolis. Fliplanthropy’s present’s producer, Asher’s childhood pal Dougie Schecter (Safdie), is alongside for the journey, however much less within the philanthropy or the homes than within the Siegels’ marriage, through which he spots some cracks.

There’s some broad comedy constructed into the character names, if I don’t miss my guess. Asher’s nickname is “Ash,” and the title Whitney means “white island,” and so they do certainly stand out in a sea of native, Black, and Latino residents. Their names are reminders of what they signify, a pressure that turns into particularly (and painfully) humorous as they stumble over themselves to keep up good bleeding-heart cred whereas additionally getting what they need, which is cash and fame. Moreover, Dougie’s final title, Schecter, is an Ashkenazic Jewish title meaning “ritual slaughterer” — a fairly good trace to his character.

Richard Foreman Jr./A24/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME

And that factors to one thing value remembering as you watch The Curse. Each Safdie and Fielder are Jewish, and each have explored Jewish concepts and tradition of their work. Benny Safdie and his brother Josh, who wrote and directed 2019’s Uncut Gems, have said in interviews that it’s their most Jewish movie, with “explicitly Jewish” humor. And plenty of (including me) have identified that Fielder’s cautious building of The Rehearsal appears expressly designed to discover ideas in Judaism in addition to the expertise of being Jewish in a Christian world.

These themes pop up within the pilot episode of The Curse nearly instantly, with Asher letting a “Jesus” slip on digicam as an expletive, then glancing at a crucifix on the wall of the house they’re in and asking for the footage to be deleted. Later, Asher and Whitney (who has transformed, with attribute alacrity, to her husband’s religion) rejoice Shabbat with Whitney’s dad and mom. Judaism and religion extra broadly are recurring themes within the present — unsurprising for a narrative that’s basically about generational hurt, guilt, and duty.

Naturally, all this results in the title of the present, which I didn’t even take into consideration till I neared the ending. There’s a literal that means to “The Curse” that turns into evident within the first episode, an incident reportedly impressed by an expertise that Fielder had in actual life.

However “the curse” can also be shorthand for what occurred within the Biblical e-book of Genesis, when Adam and Eve ate fruit rising on a tree they’d been ordered to keep away from and had been solid out of paradise. God positioned a curse upon them, which in its essence mentioned they’d must carry out labor with a view to eat, and there’d be strife of their marriage. You possibly can fairly simply map that onto what occurs in The Curse, with the enjoyable addition of Dougie because the snake that tempts them into it. When it’s this textual and so strongly linked to the creators’ pursuits, that’s hardly an accident.

There’s a lot to unpack in The Curse. It’s considerably weird and winding, anchored by its three leads’ extraordinary performances and a way of vaguely threatening thriller (due largely to the rating, composed by avant-garde jazz legend John Medeski). For a lot of the present, you’re not fairly certain what you’re even watching, which in some way makes it much more compelling. However with Safdie and Fielder (who directed many of the episodes) behind it, there’s a way of driving at one thing. The enjoyable of it comes from beginning to detect what the larger story actually is.

The Curse premieres on Paramount+ with Showtime on Friday, November 10, and airs on Showtime on Sunday, November 12, at 10 pm ET. Subsequent episodes will premiere weekly.