Russian Doll - Review and other things..
Feb. 4th, 2019 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThese things are oddly related.
1. Work was horrible, but just as I'd give up, the universe surprised me and one of my co-workers came by and offered to take a horrid assignment that my boss sprung on me today (without warning) off my incredibly stacked plate.
She asked if I'd like her help or for her to just handle the whole thing. I looked at her in complete shock, somewhat speechless.
DP: So do you want me to help you or take it over? It's no problem -- you don't have to do anything, just forward anything to me. I'll duck my head into his office and let him know I'm taking it over. He won't mind.
Me: Uh...
DP: You can wait until tomorrow to decide.
Me: Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you so much. I just want to hug you.
DP: No thanks necessary. But I'm open to hugs.
Me: I can hug you?
DP: Yes.
So we hugged. That was the one bright spot in my day and really the only part I want to focus on. The rest -- I'd frankly like to let go off, if that's okay?
2. Russian Doll
While predictable (if you happen to think and perceive reality like I do - I've found the Good Place to be weirdly predictable this year too, but I also tend to think like that), incredibly comforting and funny. I did love it. But I also figured it out by the fifth episode. (What can I say, except that I've read and seen too many of these setups? Also I see patterns in things and can see sort of how each thread affects the others. It's why I can usually figure out most story threads and plots -- with few exceptions. The one's that do not follow a discernible pattern or have one too many patterns to follow - I can't predict, like soap operas.)
The casting is odd -- but I rather liked Natasha Lyon, who is actually the only person I liked in it. And I thought Elizabeth Ashley was dead. (She's not.)
Everyone looks really odd in it. Maybe it's the lighting or the costume design?
Also I'm not sure where it is supposed to take place. Guessing NYC, because everyone sounds very New York. But it looks like it was filmed somewhere else -- possibly Toronto? They do that a lot. Doesn't matter -- no one will notice but New Yorkers.
People say to avoid spoilers -- except I don't think the plot matters all that much. It has some holes and meanders. Tight - it's not. This is really more of a character piece with metaphysical/philosophical underpinings than a plot piece. Also it works far better on a metaphorical level than a literal one.
It's sort of trippy. And I will state that it does a nice twist on the whole Groundhog Day story. In that it addresses what constantly resetting the time line would do to everyone else and time itself, which always irritated me with the whole Groundhog Day or continuous time-loop trope. It also does an excellent job of addressing the narcissistic nature of the trope -- in that it appears to focus on one person and everyone is subject to their decisions or choices. (Which I've always found to be highly annoying.) It seems to realize that it's story and plot don't quite work -- because Nadia, the main protagonist, constantly winks at it.
The set-up? Nadia on her 36th Birthday - has to keep reliving the night of the party, Ground-Hog Day Style. (Everything else would be a spoiler. I will state that it does not go the usual tract. It sort of takes a left turn by Alberque around the third episode.)
The theme such as it is -- is pretty much the same theme of the novel I wrote, hence the reason I was able to figure it out, I suspect. Which is "we're all basically doing time on planet earth, the best we can do is help each other get through it."
There's really no deep meaning beyond that. It's also the same general theme of The Good Place, heaven or hell is a mindset, and if you help others along the way...life is more of a heaven than a hell.
The difficulty is most people are inherently selfish. We think about ourselves, what we need, who we like, what can help us, what makes our lives better, who we have to tolerate and are stuck in our own internal mind-loop. Nadia is selfish in the beginning all she can see are her needs, how much she hates her birthday, and despises her life, and will most likely die before she gets much older. She's 36 and knee-deep into a mid-life crisis. Nothing makes sense. She spends the night of her birthday getting shit-faced drunk and high on pot and cocaine, while meandering her way around her neighborhood. At one point she crosses paths with a guy who is also shit-faced drunk in a convenience store...Alan, but barely notices him. She asks if he's okay, but is distracted by others in the story and she and Mike, the guy she's drunkenly decided to fuck as yet another means to escape herself are pushed out by Alan's who attempts to help him.
Nadia takes Mike home and they have a drunken and less than entertaining fuck. And then she kicks him out, and goes to get cigarettes and in attempt to get her cat who is across the street, drunkenly steps into traffic and is killed.
Alan's friend abandons him to his own devices and he goes home and commits suicide. While Nadia was reliving her birthday, Alan was reliving the night he proposed to his long-term girlfriend only to have her painfully reject him. They were supposed to be leaving on a long-planned vacation.
Each episode takes the characters back over different aspects of that night and the day afterwards -- during which they find out tidbits about each other and the characters around them, whose lives are all interwoven in the same tapestry. Each pattern connecting with the next. Now that they've been pulled out of it -- the pattern is unraveling and they have to somehow fix the time-loop. (I won't tell you how it is unraveling.)
Nadia finally figures out it's sort of akin to a Russian Doll or a bug in a computer program, where each clue is inside the next. And both Alan and Nadia realize that to survive, they have to deal with the issues that brought them to that night, and why they were too self-involved to help the other -- and didn't see anyone but themselves.
Alan figures out that his girlfriend was unhappy. He'd put too much pressure on her and their relationship from her perspective had become a full-time job. She didn't really know how to break up with him. Having met Nadia and discovering that marrying or not marrying Beatrice doesn't mean he's a failure, Alan is finally able to let go of trying to fix his relationship with Beatrice and Beatrices and focuses on fixing Nadia's night instead. Nadia does much the same thing -- she finally confronts her guilt over what happened to her mother, and realizes it wasn't her fault, and seeks out her ex's daughter to provide her with the book that saved Nadia and kept Nadia going. She helps someone else -- an estranged daughter, which heals the unresolved feelings towards her mother -- which had lead her on her own suicidal meander that fateful night == hunting death. After she's able to confront this -- she's finally able to focus completely on resolving Alan's issues.
By doing so, the time line rights itself and provides both characters with a second chance to save the other. It splits, so that Alan travels back to Nadia's night and follows and saves her, while Nadia travels to Alan's night and follows and saves Alan. It's not easy for either, and both have to work hard to get the other to trust them and let them in -- since in each case the other one has no memory of them.
When they accomplish their tasks, the time lines merge and they exit the loop in a wild celebratory parade through the park lead by the homeless man they each helped.
It's a comforting story...although not one you should think too hard about. There's a few contrivances here and there. But it appears to be aware of them, some of the comedy comes from Nadia and to a degree clueless Alan winking at the absurdity of their situation and how everyone else appears to be caught in the loop, albeit oblivious to it.
Nadia to her friends: Aren't you happy to be outside finally? You've been stuck in that apartment for well on twenty days, I'd think you'd notice.
Both look at her as if she's speaking gibberish.
My difficulty with time travel stories or time-loop is it doesn't make logical sense. If it did happen, why just focus on two people? And does this happen outside of the current time line? From science perspective -- this does not work. Also metaphysically -- as Nadia states at one point -- "for morality to be all about what you think you've done wrong or how you behaved, and this is just punishing you -- is rather narcissistic. I don't think the Universe shares your moral perspective."
There is an ironic narcissism at the center of the trope, which the writers always get around by showing a formerly narcissistic and rather selfish person becoming gradually kind and giving to others. Showing people can change if motivated. But, the construct in of itself is centered on the self or ego and both characters are trapped in their own mental and then shared mind loops.
So, to make sense of it -- you can state it's a psychological dream or nightmare of sorts, with a shared consciousness -- where the characters are stuck in their own psychosis until they step away from their ego/self or let go of that construct...and see each other and the world around them. The self goes away. They live. And the multiple deaths are in reality the death of various incarnations of their selves or egos...until finally that part is gone, and they are blissfully free. Both characters are happy at the end. Nothing in their lives has really changed, just their perception of it -- they no longer see it through the haze of guilt, desire, fear, and ego.
As a character piece it works, also on a psychological level it works, plot/science schematics -- not so much. But the writers appear to be aware of that -- and a good portion of the humor arises from that awareness, there's a tongue firmly in check feeling about the series. In one hilarious episode, I think it is the second one, Nadia can't get down the stairs of her friends apartment without breaking her neck. She finally gives up and much to her friends bewilderment and bemusement goes down the fire-escape. This bit is referenced later -- when Nadia explains her fear of the steps to Maxine and Maxine kindly assists her down them. Nadia who couldn't ask for help from anyone, and only depends on herself -- starts asking for help, and allows others to help her -- and wonder of wonders...things get better. I liked this -- because Universe taught me the same lesson today. Throughout the series -- it's repeated that we need others, we need connections to other people, we can't do it by ourselves. The video game Nadia creates by herself for a sole player is impossible to play and not fun. Each time she tries to go it alone -- she dies. It's not until she starts trying to help someone else or allows them to help her, that it begins to change. Same with Alan, who accuses Nadia of being the most selfish person he has ever met. Yet Alan and Nadia are oddly mirror reflections of each other -- mirrors are heavily referenced in the series -- and disappear at one point, around the same time that Nadia remembers her mother smashing all the mirrors in their house. The mirrors represent introspection but also the inherent narcissism of the society surrounding them and themselves. Nadia rejects men and everyone around her, Alan is rejected by everyone around him. Nadia is a slob and messes up Alan's apartment, while Alan is neat and cleans Nadia's apartment, both crossing a line and pissing off the other. And in both cases -- their habits serve to push others away from them. Both have ex's that they can't make things work with -- while Alan wants to marry his ex, Nadia keeps rejecting her ex's desire for commitment. In a way they repel and attract each other, circling one another, until the time stream brings them fatefully into contact.
From a metaphorical level this all works beautifully, it doesn't work on a literal level -- but perhaps it isn't supposed to or it doesn't matter. I don't tend to think literally -- I think in metaphors and patterns, so it worked for me, but I can see why it doesn't work for others.
Overall rating? Eh...B+/A- (Better than most of the stuff I've seen lately, but it you consider what I've been watching that's probably not saying all that much. ;-) )
1. Work was horrible, but just as I'd give up, the universe surprised me and one of my co-workers came by and offered to take a horrid assignment that my boss sprung on me today (without warning) off my incredibly stacked plate.
She asked if I'd like her help or for her to just handle the whole thing. I looked at her in complete shock, somewhat speechless.
DP: So do you want me to help you or take it over? It's no problem -- you don't have to do anything, just forward anything to me. I'll duck my head into his office and let him know I'm taking it over. He won't mind.
Me: Uh...
DP: You can wait until tomorrow to decide.
Me: Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you so much. I just want to hug you.
DP: No thanks necessary. But I'm open to hugs.
Me: I can hug you?
DP: Yes.
So we hugged. That was the one bright spot in my day and really the only part I want to focus on. The rest -- I'd frankly like to let go off, if that's okay?
2. Russian Doll
While predictable (if you happen to think and perceive reality like I do - I've found the Good Place to be weirdly predictable this year too, but I also tend to think like that), incredibly comforting and funny. I did love it. But I also figured it out by the fifth episode. (What can I say, except that I've read and seen too many of these setups? Also I see patterns in things and can see sort of how each thread affects the others. It's why I can usually figure out most story threads and plots -- with few exceptions. The one's that do not follow a discernible pattern or have one too many patterns to follow - I can't predict, like soap operas.)
The casting is odd -- but I rather liked Natasha Lyon, who is actually the only person I liked in it. And I thought Elizabeth Ashley was dead. (She's not.)
Everyone looks really odd in it. Maybe it's the lighting or the costume design?
Also I'm not sure where it is supposed to take place. Guessing NYC, because everyone sounds very New York. But it looks like it was filmed somewhere else -- possibly Toronto? They do that a lot. Doesn't matter -- no one will notice but New Yorkers.
People say to avoid spoilers -- except I don't think the plot matters all that much. It has some holes and meanders. Tight - it's not. This is really more of a character piece with metaphysical/philosophical underpinings than a plot piece. Also it works far better on a metaphorical level than a literal one.
It's sort of trippy. And I will state that it does a nice twist on the whole Groundhog Day story. In that it addresses what constantly resetting the time line would do to everyone else and time itself, which always irritated me with the whole Groundhog Day or continuous time-loop trope. It also does an excellent job of addressing the narcissistic nature of the trope -- in that it appears to focus on one person and everyone is subject to their decisions or choices. (Which I've always found to be highly annoying.) It seems to realize that it's story and plot don't quite work -- because Nadia, the main protagonist, constantly winks at it.
The set-up? Nadia on her 36th Birthday - has to keep reliving the night of the party, Ground-Hog Day Style. (Everything else would be a spoiler. I will state that it does not go the usual tract. It sort of takes a left turn by Alberque around the third episode.)
The theme such as it is -- is pretty much the same theme of the novel I wrote, hence the reason I was able to figure it out, I suspect. Which is "we're all basically doing time on planet earth, the best we can do is help each other get through it."
There's really no deep meaning beyond that. It's also the same general theme of The Good Place, heaven or hell is a mindset, and if you help others along the way...life is more of a heaven than a hell.
The difficulty is most people are inherently selfish. We think about ourselves, what we need, who we like, what can help us, what makes our lives better, who we have to tolerate and are stuck in our own internal mind-loop. Nadia is selfish in the beginning all she can see are her needs, how much she hates her birthday, and despises her life, and will most likely die before she gets much older. She's 36 and knee-deep into a mid-life crisis. Nothing makes sense. She spends the night of her birthday getting shit-faced drunk and high on pot and cocaine, while meandering her way around her neighborhood. At one point she crosses paths with a guy who is also shit-faced drunk in a convenience store...Alan, but barely notices him. She asks if he's okay, but is distracted by others in the story and she and Mike, the guy she's drunkenly decided to fuck as yet another means to escape herself are pushed out by Alan's who attempts to help him.
Nadia takes Mike home and they have a drunken and less than entertaining fuck. And then she kicks him out, and goes to get cigarettes and in attempt to get her cat who is across the street, drunkenly steps into traffic and is killed.
Alan's friend abandons him to his own devices and he goes home and commits suicide. While Nadia was reliving her birthday, Alan was reliving the night he proposed to his long-term girlfriend only to have her painfully reject him. They were supposed to be leaving on a long-planned vacation.
Each episode takes the characters back over different aspects of that night and the day afterwards -- during which they find out tidbits about each other and the characters around them, whose lives are all interwoven in the same tapestry. Each pattern connecting with the next. Now that they've been pulled out of it -- the pattern is unraveling and they have to somehow fix the time-loop. (I won't tell you how it is unraveling.)
Nadia finally figures out it's sort of akin to a Russian Doll or a bug in a computer program, where each clue is inside the next. And both Alan and Nadia realize that to survive, they have to deal with the issues that brought them to that night, and why they were too self-involved to help the other -- and didn't see anyone but themselves.
Alan figures out that his girlfriend was unhappy. He'd put too much pressure on her and their relationship from her perspective had become a full-time job. She didn't really know how to break up with him. Having met Nadia and discovering that marrying or not marrying Beatrice doesn't mean he's a failure, Alan is finally able to let go of trying to fix his relationship with Beatrice and Beatrices and focuses on fixing Nadia's night instead. Nadia does much the same thing -- she finally confronts her guilt over what happened to her mother, and realizes it wasn't her fault, and seeks out her ex's daughter to provide her with the book that saved Nadia and kept Nadia going. She helps someone else -- an estranged daughter, which heals the unresolved feelings towards her mother -- which had lead her on her own suicidal meander that fateful night == hunting death. After she's able to confront this -- she's finally able to focus completely on resolving Alan's issues.
By doing so, the time line rights itself and provides both characters with a second chance to save the other. It splits, so that Alan travels back to Nadia's night and follows and saves her, while Nadia travels to Alan's night and follows and saves Alan. It's not easy for either, and both have to work hard to get the other to trust them and let them in -- since in each case the other one has no memory of them.
When they accomplish their tasks, the time lines merge and they exit the loop in a wild celebratory parade through the park lead by the homeless man they each helped.
It's a comforting story...although not one you should think too hard about. There's a few contrivances here and there. But it appears to be aware of them, some of the comedy comes from Nadia and to a degree clueless Alan winking at the absurdity of their situation and how everyone else appears to be caught in the loop, albeit oblivious to it.
Nadia to her friends: Aren't you happy to be outside finally? You've been stuck in that apartment for well on twenty days, I'd think you'd notice.
Both look at her as if she's speaking gibberish.
My difficulty with time travel stories or time-loop is it doesn't make logical sense. If it did happen, why just focus on two people? And does this happen outside of the current time line? From science perspective -- this does not work. Also metaphysically -- as Nadia states at one point -- "for morality to be all about what you think you've done wrong or how you behaved, and this is just punishing you -- is rather narcissistic. I don't think the Universe shares your moral perspective."
There is an ironic narcissism at the center of the trope, which the writers always get around by showing a formerly narcissistic and rather selfish person becoming gradually kind and giving to others. Showing people can change if motivated. But, the construct in of itself is centered on the self or ego and both characters are trapped in their own mental and then shared mind loops.
So, to make sense of it -- you can state it's a psychological dream or nightmare of sorts, with a shared consciousness -- where the characters are stuck in their own psychosis until they step away from their ego/self or let go of that construct...and see each other and the world around them. The self goes away. They live. And the multiple deaths are in reality the death of various incarnations of their selves or egos...until finally that part is gone, and they are blissfully free. Both characters are happy at the end. Nothing in their lives has really changed, just their perception of it -- they no longer see it through the haze of guilt, desire, fear, and ego.
As a character piece it works, also on a psychological level it works, plot/science schematics -- not so much. But the writers appear to be aware of that -- and a good portion of the humor arises from that awareness, there's a tongue firmly in check feeling about the series. In one hilarious episode, I think it is the second one, Nadia can't get down the stairs of her friends apartment without breaking her neck. She finally gives up and much to her friends bewilderment and bemusement goes down the fire-escape. This bit is referenced later -- when Nadia explains her fear of the steps to Maxine and Maxine kindly assists her down them. Nadia who couldn't ask for help from anyone, and only depends on herself -- starts asking for help, and allows others to help her -- and wonder of wonders...things get better. I liked this -- because Universe taught me the same lesson today. Throughout the series -- it's repeated that we need others, we need connections to other people, we can't do it by ourselves. The video game Nadia creates by herself for a sole player is impossible to play and not fun. Each time she tries to go it alone -- she dies. It's not until she starts trying to help someone else or allows them to help her, that it begins to change. Same with Alan, who accuses Nadia of being the most selfish person he has ever met. Yet Alan and Nadia are oddly mirror reflections of each other -- mirrors are heavily referenced in the series -- and disappear at one point, around the same time that Nadia remembers her mother smashing all the mirrors in their house. The mirrors represent introspection but also the inherent narcissism of the society surrounding them and themselves. Nadia rejects men and everyone around her, Alan is rejected by everyone around him. Nadia is a slob and messes up Alan's apartment, while Alan is neat and cleans Nadia's apartment, both crossing a line and pissing off the other. And in both cases -- their habits serve to push others away from them. Both have ex's that they can't make things work with -- while Alan wants to marry his ex, Nadia keeps rejecting her ex's desire for commitment. In a way they repel and attract each other, circling one another, until the time stream brings them fatefully into contact.
From a metaphorical level this all works beautifully, it doesn't work on a literal level -- but perhaps it isn't supposed to or it doesn't matter. I don't tend to think literally -- I think in metaphors and patterns, so it worked for me, but I can see why it doesn't work for others.
Overall rating? Eh...B+/A- (Better than most of the stuff I've seen lately, but it you consider what I've been watching that's probably not saying all that much. ;-) )
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 02:48 pm (UTC)Precisely! This is what I was suggesting, yesterday. As a throw away story, that nobody will remember next week it could end however they wanted. As something a little better they'd have to go with the old cliche and have it all be a dream/nightmare that would end when the dreamer woke up or actually died. To make it a good story worthy of deeper discussion they'd have to clean up the time travel effects and have a better excuse of why it would happen than, "Well, it seemed convenient when I was writing it."
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 08:26 pm (UTC)Yeah, it doesn't work logistically at all. It's why I despise time-travel stories -- they rarely do, because the writer hasn't bothered to think about time travel realistically or the science of it. Instead they look at it purely from a metaphorical/metaphysical level, but not from a literal or science one. But if I ignore that -- and see it purely from a psychological perspective -- it works beautifully. Of course it always ends with the character resolving the problem and finally being permitted to wake from their existential dreamscape or nightmares.
The only other way to end it -- is to make sense of the time travel stuff and the effects. Which they never do, because they are television comedy writers not scientists. Disappointing, but sort of expected. It's why I didn't find it to be as mind-blowing as a lot of people did.