I just finished the last episode of the curse which is likely my favorite show ever. I'm gonna write a bit about the show no spoilers then do the spoiler bit.
I don't want to sound like every article and do unnecessary stuff with this. But the show does star Emma stone, Nathan fielder, and Benny safdie and it was created and written by the latter two. Fielder was the main director throughout.
I love this series because it so uniquely unconventional. It seems to achieve everything through a stubborn embrace of genre smashing parodox and colliding opposites. The show is hilarious because Fielder's character and others are so painfully unfunny. The show is dense with energy and excitement because it is so slow! (And fast) the premise of the show promises super naturalism but the moments seem to mostly concern the radical mundanity of everyday life so filled with awkward weirdness that its effect achieves a grandiosity of its own. But that supernatural bit remains strong, just hiding well enough .
The show has so much to say. It's about everything... at least through the eyes of two progressive brilliant... white male filmmakers. The show is about race to its core. The three main characters are white. There is not a significant character who parallels them who is not white. I don't believe this is a failure of the show. If that were the case perhaps the political equations wouldn't balance I'm not sure, but the show doesn't need to be everything , even though it's about everything. The creators are white and they made the show through their perspective which I think is acceptable. The series is in opposition to pandering so perhaps they felt writing a "realized" poc character would seem to behave that way. Although I understand and can appreciate the criticism.
anyway , Marriage, gentrification, generational wealth, television- social media culture, art world politics, masculinity, love, fate and destiny, religion, acting, comedy, , the minutiae of every moment of our social lives.....
what this show is saying to me about these things... it's saying that we are all doing too much. I don't want to make it seem too simple.. but simply the characters do too much and that is the root of their problems.
There's a great moment in the season finale where Asher and Whitney present to Abshir, the father of Nala who places the titular curse, the ownership rights to the house he has been staying in under their landlorship. Abshir's reaction to being given the home was completely mute, no thank you. He only inquired as to whether they will continue to pay his property taxes. The moment is so beautifully done because at this point Asher and Whitney are desperate for gratitude. They are desperate to assuage their guilt. They have spent months allowing the family to live rent free and are surrendering additional hundreds of thousands of dollars in an altruistic gesture but in the absence of any verbal reciprocity you see clearly why.... Why they are doing what they were doing... what they expected... what they wanted out of the gesture...
The curse is about escape. Each of the main characters face a reality unto which they cannot. Their identities, the parts of which can be controlled and those which are uncontrollable are constantly in confrontation mimicking our own lives and struggles with vivid and unrelenting clarity.
In one of the best cuts from the show it is dramatically realized that Asher has a micropenis. We get a proper look. This is the root of who his character is. Perhaps this is the true curse of the show of which there are many. Asher's insecurity, his lack of confidence and social poise could likely emanate from this feature of his body. Unlike his father in law who embraces the small penis mandate and uses it to his benefit, Asher seems to have lived in the small shadow of his small penis his whole life.
SPOILER ALERT when Asher flies into the sky to end the series spectacularly, it is as though his body, his being could only bear the singular moment of procreation that he achieves in that episode with Whitney. He was only good for one. I'm excited because I know the ending will inspire lots of different ideas.
I think the moments poignancy comes in part from an earlier moment in the final episode. Asher says awkwardly that "art... sometimes has to go to extreme lengths to make its point." The statement however obvious, clumsy and funny in the scene is realized profoundly at the episodes conclusion. Asher's isolation, his lack of confidence, his devotion to a woman who doesn't respect him. These elements of his situation indicate that he indeed was cursed, the ending leaves absolutely no doubt of his ultimate loser status on a cosmic level. that's just the way it goes sometimes. It remains inexplicable the exact cause and effect.. the meaning god feels involved somehow, but that inexplicablity is just so exciting. And such is life.
It was heartbreaking too. Asher was so excited to be a father and he wasn't truly evil. In that episode he makes the decision to permanently house Nala who cursed him at the series' begining. So why? Hasn't he done enough to lift the curse? Perhaps there is meaning to be found in the truth of intent. Why we act altruistically, why white people try to bury their guilt underneath shallow good deeds. Asher was trying too hard perhaps. A reading of the show's message might suggest that we face our problems, our insecurities to deal with them personally rather than operate on others to fulfill a resolution of our own guilt. In attempting to break the curse perhaps we curse ourselves. Perhaps the true escape involves none.
Whitney certainly typifies this. Her parents are known locally as slumlords. It seems everything about her identity and persona is constructed to distance herself from their influence. But how can she escape it when she funds all her projects with the money she receives from her parents? It's an unhealthy paradox one that begs for honesty, for restraint, for candor in our interactions with others. Whitney's altruism fails when it becomes about her image. No act of good can ever be separated from a self interest but Whitney's gaping guilt hole is just too big and nasty so neatly typical of many. Not to mention she also stands to profit from her extreme acts of altruism that seem to do more harm than the good they allegedly promote.
The series is about this house of cards that is our identities. The tenuous construction of our selves, how they operate around others. Perhaps we should gather that when we use others it's .... bad.
This idea of misguided love as well. The characters are complex, they love well but they directly it poorly. Asher loves Whitney to the point of obsequiousness. Whitney accepts this dark love because she loves herself too much. She loves the ideas of environmentalism and justice to the point where she undermines their practice. Dougie lost the woman he loves. How do we achieve balance?
I don't know the show is just so good. The little moments are the most big... to me. I have to watch it again to remember but simply the miscommunications, the unrealized cues. This show almost presents a blueprint of how not to act. It feels like so much is being probed it's exciting. I feel so proud of everyone involved. Emma stone is hauntingly expressive. She uses her face with an articulation that is very awesome. Nathan and Benny are great too. Dougie is so charismatic and Benny seems to disappear behind those glasses. Nathan is so awkward that it works but it's his direction that is truly exceptional. The unconventional pace and rhythm of the show, the holds, the cuts, the final credit leads that are so satisfyingly dissatisfying. Ahhh. So so good.
Maybe I'll add more.
oh yeah,
More words on the ending. I read a piece that said the last episode was out of pace with the rest of the show. That it felt tacked on and its explosiveness felt contrived? I really disagree. To me it felt so well timed and placed. The extremity of the situation, the ways in which it escalated throughout the episode. The slowness of the initial camera pan to the rushing godly rapture of the end. Oh man. I feel it was a proper reward to the suspense that was built throughout. The shock was earned. If it wasn't out of place it wouldn't have had the intended effect,
.And to address another criticism I think that it should not have been well explained, it should not have resolved every question. The ending felt truly final... but it maintains that sense of enigma and that is all I personally would want. Again paradox, balance and imbalance, answering a question with a question is still an answer... or not?
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