The Curse Review: An Uncompromisingly Weird And Savage Satire From Nathan Fielder And Benny Safdie
For good or ill, the new Showtime series "The Curse" just about defies description. On its face, the hourlong dark comedy-drama is a sly and nasty satire of shows like "Love It or List It," "Flip or Flop," and others from the HGTV stable of faux-reality "reality television." One of the series' co-creators, co-writers, and co-stars, Nathan Fielder, has long excelled in making undefinable TV shows that operate on a specific level of bleak comedy that also raises questions of what is and isn't real, and whether anything presented as part of the television landscape can truly embody reality. The other co-creator, co-writer, and co-star, Benny Safdie, has become as recognizable as a performer in making uncompromisingly dark films like "Good Time" and "Uncut Gems," which push their characters past the breaking point and into unexpected realms. What "The Curse" does lines up well with both Fielder and Safdie, and boasts a remarkably committed performance from co-star Emma Stone, but it remains bafflingly elusive and cagey from start to finish.
Fielder and Stone play recently married couple Asher and Whitney Siegel, who are currently co-starring in an HGTV pilot called "Flipanthropy" in which they overhaul the real town of Espanola, New Mexico to have something dubbed "passive homes" wherein the technology behind the structures is meant to be truly eco-friendly down to having a mirrored exterior. It's not just passive homes, though; as the title of their pilot implies, the intent that Asher and Whitney purportedly have is to enable people in Espanola to live in these houses while also reviving the local economy so its citizens can work in subsidized businesses. From the opening scene of "The Curse," in which the show's producer/Asher's frenemy Dougie (Safdie) has to rub a menthol stick on the face of an elderly woman whose son just got hired at one of those businesses, simply to evoke what looks like an emotional reaction, it's evident that the shiny exterior of the show belies the hollowness of its characters. Things seemingly get worse for Asher when he tries to create a TV-magic moment by giving a young girl (Hikmah Warsame) $100 "just for being you," and then — as soon as the cameras are off — take the money away. In response, she says she curses Asher, which leads to ... well, a lot of strange and inexplicable occurrences.
To say more about "The Curse" would be to both ruin the odd experience of this ten-episode hourlong series (all ten episodes have been made available to critics), and to defy logic. To explain the events of this show would be akin to explaining a joke, robbing it of its unnerving power. Part of the show's success comes from the cringe school of modern comedy, as in the scene that leads to Asher purportedly being cursed. The awkwardness of Asher stealing money from a child (after literally giving it to her) is bad enough, but the same is true of other aspects of Asher and Whitney's backstory, from his anxieties surrounding his micropenis (yes, really) to her checkered past thanks to her parents (Corbin Bernsen and Constance Shulman) and their experience in serving as local landlords.
An almost skin-crawling TV experience
Asher and Whitney initially give off the sense of being good, generically liberal people, but their inability to see past their own stereotypes leads to massively uncomfortable sequences. Though it's no surprise that Fielder is effective at being the butt of the joke (as in unintentionally uncomfortable moments at a local casino or while he attends a corporate comedy class), Stone's fierce commitment to the bit is pretty remarkable too. "The Curse," as if sensing its audience's own skepticism, plays somewhat into the notion that Stone and Fielder playing a married couple seems a little off, but while Whitney is outwardly charming, charismatic, and beautiful, she's masking intense immaturity and ignorance, the latter cropping up when she interacts with an indigenous artist (Nizhonniya Austin), who Whitney sees as an artistic comrade (an opinion that is clearly one-sided).
Much of what allows "The Curse" to seem almost skin-crawling in its awkwardness and discomfort is thanks to incredible sound design and patient cinematography and editing. All of these are effectively hallmarks of a more modern style of psychodrama and thriller as evinced by the indie studio A24, so it should come as no surprise that the very same studio co-produced this show. (There's also the musical undercurrents lent by composer Daniel Lopatin, as the soundtrack seems to shriek even as the characters' voices stay low.) Though the episode lengths vary, many clock in around 50 to 60 minutes and are replete with long takes, slow camera pans, and a consistent sense that we're almost spying on the events of the show. Where the handful of show-within-a-show scenes are predictably polished, shiny, and fast-paced, the rest of "The Curse" is filmed in a beyond verite style, implying that the cameras filming the series are as hidden as possible to allow the potential dissolution of a shaky marriage to crumble without any true intrusion.
As such, "The Curse" often feels discomfiting and disturbing. There is always, always the sense that something terrible is about to happen on this show, whether or not a child's curse can be pointed to as the deciding factor. The long, slow burn of a buildup is almost a bit more satisfying than what comes after; the promise of something freaky and possibly scary can't always be matched by what actually arrives. If that seems vague, well ... you'll just have to watch "The Curse" to understand, because putting words to what happens in the series can't hope to match up with the show itself. It doesn't quite stick the landing, but "The Curse" is, like other Fielder and Safdie projects, a distinctive, unique, and weirdly unnerving commentary on modern culture, as refracted and warped as the mirrors that constantly confront its characters.
/Film Rating: 8 out of 10
"The Curse" premieres Friday, November 10, on streaming and on demand for Paramount+ subscribers with the Paramount+ with Showtime plan, before making its on-air debut on Showtime on Sunday, November 12, 2023.