It’s hard to say what exactly is wrong with Shalom Auslander’s Happyish.
The ingredients for an appropriately timely, edgy dramedy with sneering insights but clever asides are all here. There's a talented writer at the lead and a talented cast surrounding him, yet the recipe still ends up sour. Much like the show’s main characters, one hopes to get through it with earnest hopes, but, based on the results, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to stay optimistic, especially after this week’s “Starring Daniel Ogilvy, Anton Chekov and Gluten Enteropathy.”
With their “realistic” re-imagining of the Keebler elves marketing campaign in full effect, Thom (Steve Coogan) has to head to L.A. to oversee director Rob Reiner’s vision, all while the mastermind of the project, Gottfrid (Nils Lawton), is elsewhere kissing ass for the company. It’s hot, it’s busy and it’s self-congratulatory territory, so of course our protagonist hates it. He’s only supposed to spend nine hours here before he boards his plane back to Woodstock to be with his loving wife and son, Lee (Kathryn Hahn) and Julius (Sawyer Shipman), but naturally things go awry, just as Thom feared.
One actor, Ernie (Danny Woodburn) can’t eat the cookies thanks to a bad physical reaction to gluten. Another actor (Mark Povinelli) is considered "too down" in his performance, even though his character is dealing with his father’s unemployment. To top it off, Reiner isn’t putting his heart into it because he cares more about the Lakers tickets he has that night. Thom tries calling Lee several times to let her know about his problems, but he’s not getting through to her. This is because she broke her phone, and now must deal with the agony of trying to get a new one with salespeople who desperately want her to get an iPhone. As this goes on, all poor little Julius wants besides his dad home is an iPad, particularly as the class-bully Fitzgerald (Jeremy Zorek) brags endlessly about his during their school time.
This week’s director Anthony McCarthy, an actor people likely remember best from Weekend at Bernie’s, does a solid job displaying the tedious on-set process. Beyond this, however, Happyish is back into clunky, messy territory. After some solid steps forward in the weeks prior, “Starring Daniel Ogilvy, Anton Chekov and Gluten Enteropathy” starts off fine. Instead of starting off with Thom or Lee cussing out celebrities/characters, complaining about shopping mall culture or asking alien overlords to bring them back to their rightful planet, we get genuine one-on-one human interaction, with Thom being a good dad for his son as he tells him about his business duties with a promise of a toy for him following his travels as they wait for Julius’ school bus. It’s a nice moment, showing Thom as a responsible, dutiful adult. But this goes as quick as it came.
From here, we get to hear another spiteful monologue from our main character, now talking about how Jesus was “the first marketing genius” as the CMO of God, Inc. He paved the way for the business strategies selling cosmetics and Viagra, and while Time proclaimed “God is Dead” back in the ‘70s, in truth he’s not dead but rather out of business. Who took His place in his absence? Apple, the new “Church of America.” We now bow at the alter of iPhones and MacBook Pros, and despite our high-tech technology we are still reduced to our childish tendencies. There’s a fun message here buried about the shallowness of materialism, but it’s lost between bits about the Keebler elves pimping themselves out and Thom dealing with temperamental actors. There’s one silver lining, however.
Reiner returns after his brief introduction to Happyish a couple weeks back, and in his supporting turn he proves his talents are far better suited in front of the camera. Between his great appearances in this and The Wolf of Wall Street a few weeks back, the actor-turned-filmmaker proves he's just as lively and energized as ever in temporary, foul-mouthed interludes on screen, especially considering how lazy he’s become as a director of late. It’s a supremely charismatic turn, and one sadly used only to some of its potential. Much like the rest of the show, here is a performer game and ready to go but held back to a sub-par variation of himself giving his all while getting short-changed. It’s a shame, but such is the case for this new Showtime series.
In a recent Deadline interview, Coogan said the people who don’t like Happyish “don’t understand it,” using Philip Seymour Hoffman’s involvement with the pilot as testament and saying the people who like the show “love it.” It’s possible a program about mid-life angst is lost in translation for his 22-year-old writer. That said I’m pretty sure I get what Coogan, Auslander and their crew are trying to say.
I respect their vision of the nihilistic underbelly of Prozac-aided society and the ruthless digest of capitalism, but just saying the same thing over-and-over again in a smug, disoriented manner isn’t really bold as much as it is repetitively dull. I want Happyish to be a good show, and with only three episodes left this season (and maybe ever), it likely won’t become this but it can at least become passable. If that’s the case, I’ll become pretty happyish with Auslander’s disgruntled televised vision.
Image courtesy of INFphoto.com