I recently read Monica Heisey’s Really Good Actually which is the buzzed about book of the moment. I’m generally averse to anything that’s too hyped because I’ll be the judge of that, thank you, but the premise sounded great and I did want to see what all the fuss was about.
The novel is about Maggie, a 28-year old Canadian woman navigating the emotional fallout from her marriage which has failed within two years. It is very funny and well observed and a few pages in, I was fully on board.
“In the movies, when you got divorced, you lay down on the floor, and then you got drunk, and then you picked yourself up by the sweater shawl and learned to love yourself again at a beach house rented from a charming and handsome older man whose first wife died, and although he clearly loves her in a respectful way, he feels he might be ready to move on, like the two of you might help each other heal.”
And a little later in the same passage:
“Certainly, you are not supposed to be 28-years old and actively planning a birthday party with the dress code ‘Jimmy Buffett sluts’.”
The hit rate of the laughs is impressively consistent across 370 odd pages and I enjoyed this book a lot. I did have a bit of a problem with the tone, though. It’s so unrelentingly droll that by the end, I realised that it had left me a little cold.
I’m all for glib and self-effacing (as demonstrated in the pages of this newsletter) but in a novel that’s tackling such an emotionally rich subject, the unremitting cynicism and absence of sincerity has a deadening effect. I remember feeling a similar way after Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times. This mode has been creeping into other female-authored literary fiction, with varying degrees of success.
These thoughts crystallised further when I watched the first season of Search Party (on iPlayer), a dark comedy drama about a group of friends who become involved in the search for a missing women they went to college with. It first aired in 2016 but as this newsletter has proven, there’s no such thing as being too late to the party.
The main character is Dory, a somewhat directionless New Yorker played by the gorgeous Alia Shawkat (Maeby Fünke from Arrested Development). Shawkat pulls of the very challenging hair cut of short and curly with a fringe and brilliantly portrays the listlessness of a particular kind of self-absorbed 20-something very well. Her boyfriend and friends are narcissistic nightmares (though they do become more human and less caricaturish as the series goes on) and they are endlessly sarcastic and mean to each other.
I am allergic to mawkish but I do think there needs to be at least some warmth and sentiment to balance out the snark. Or maybe I’m just being 39 and I have aged out of the emotional zeitgeist? The point is, both Heisey’s book and this show are very well done but also kind of a downer and whether it’s exalted or broken-hearted, I do like to be left feeling something.
Feedback Loop
Did I mention I recently interviewed Lena Dunham? Well, as per her suggestion, I’ve been making my way through the back catalogue of Blank Check, a podcast which reviews directors' complete filmographies episode to episode.
The episodes are very long - often 2 hours plus - and some would benefit from a damn good edit but mostly, they are a rambling, deeply enjoyable way of re-visiting beloved films, past and present, and the two hosts are insanely knowledgable about their subject in a very nerdy and amusing manner.
Having spent nearly 7 (7!) hours listing to them discussing the Back To The Future trilogy, I was compelled to go back and watch the best film of all time, the first Back To The Future and it was just as good as I remembered. I then enjoyed a satisfying re-watch of Jerry Maguire (which is possibly perfect ? and is the only film in which I fancy Tom Cruise. I’d also forgotten how great Renee Zellweger is.)
The smart criticism, attention to detail and delightful trivia in the podcast makes it a perfect companion piece to the corresponding films, allowing you to appreciate them on a whole new level.
Next up, their 3 hour analysis of Titanic. Time is precious.
See you soon!
Hannah