Binge-r #161: Living with Yourself + Modern Love

Mirror Images: Paul Rudd (Miles) in Living with Yourself

LIVING WITH YOURSELF S1

Streaming Service: Netflix

Availability: All eight episodes now streaming

It wouldn’t be surprising if Living with Yourself creator Timothy Greenberg was a fan of Talking Heads’ timeless 1981 single “Once in a Lifetime”. Echoes of the song’s burbling rhythm and disconcerting realisations can be felt throughout this series, which examines the idea of belonging and acceptance through the prism of dual characters played by Paul Rudd. The first is Miles Elliot, a dissatisfied advertising executive going nowhere in his career and marriage to Kate (Aisling Bea); his scrapes with a credenza epitomise his domestic ennui. The second is christened, after a procedure at a strip mall spa proves not to be the pick-me-up intended, New Miles. He is a clone – fitter, happier, more productive – who through a rapid series of errors ends up partnered with the subject he was supposed to replace.

All of this is established in the first episode (they’re a swift 26 minutes or so each), with boredom giving way to bewilderment. The horrifying science-fiction possibilities are acknowledged and put aside – the two Mile’s only have the briefest of initial fights. The episodes flip back and forth from their respective viewpoints, and the tone is everyday askew: after some debate, the pair set out to share a single life, with Miles initially as the overseer of New Miles, sending his replacement off to work, where he thrives with his positivity and ideas. Miles sets to work on the play he’s been writing, and within a week he’s day drinking and watching porn. Plans do not have good outcomes on this show.

Paul Rudd is very good at delineating the two halves of the same DNA strand, but the writing sometimes struggles to create momentum when both versions share a scene. The third and fourth episodes instead explore separate interactions with others, including the Irish-born Kate and Miles’ sister (Alia Shawkat) who prefers the attentive New Miles; “he’s come over a few times,” she casually mentions. Those little twists are indicative of the approach – this is a black comedy that naturally falls back on the incongruous. In some ways it has a similar starting point but opposite approach to Netflix’s divisive Maniac [full review here] – Living with Yourself is low-key and infiltrative, embracing an off-kilter weirdness. It’s watchable, but not quite wonderful. Same as it ever was.

Parallel Lines: Anne Hathaway (Lexi) and Gary Carr (Jeff) in Modern Love

MODERN LOVE (Amazon Prime Video, eight episodes): Anthology series can be hit and miss, especially when there’s a mix of writers and directors at work. Amazon’s new show – adapted from the popular weekly column about contemporary relationships that runs in the New York Times – just falls on the positive side of the scale. In part that’s because I enjoy watching a great deal of the sizable cast, such as Andrew Scott (a.k.a. Fleabag’s Hot Priest), Catherine Keener, Julia Garner and Shea Wigham; Tina Fey and John Slattery playing a married couple stalked by divorce is very much my thing. The latter’s episode was written and directed, with her usual snap and cosmic crackle, by Sharon Horgan, but the main creative is Irish filmmaker John Carney (Once, Sing Street), who writes or directs a small majority of these pieces. He charts not just couples, but prospective parents, initial dates, and autumnal second chances – the well-off New York vibe and occasional misstep with reality is very redolent of Woody Allen’s screen realm. You can pick and choose what you watch, but I’d strongly suggest saving the final episode for last. Otherwise, just find your favourite.

NEWLY ADDED MOVIES

New on Netflix: Directed with terrifyingly precise control by Denis Villeneuve, Sicario (2015, 121 minutes) is a drug war thriller that becomes a horror film about a woman – Emily Blunt’s FBI agent – fighting to survive in a man’s world; El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019, 122 minutes), with Aaron Paul adding to his character Jesse Pinkman’s path, is mostly satisfying if you love the show and superfluous if not.

New on SBS on Demand: A vampire double bill that upends the genre: Kathryn Bigelow’s bold modern western Near Dark (1987, 95 minutes) and Jim Jarmusch’s meditation on a surplus of life and art, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013, 123 minutes), where Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston memorably revisit a love affair that has circled the globe for centuries.

New on Stan: Paul Thomas Anderson turns male connection and cult history into a fractious account of friendship and control in The Master (2012, 138 minutes), with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, and a seditious Amy Adams; cruelly compact, The Page Turner (2004, 122 minutes) is a compelling French thriller about art and revenge that hits a Hitchcock rhythm.

>> Want BINGE-R sent to your inbox? Click here for the weekly e-mail.

>> Check the complete BINGE-R archive: 196 series reviewed here, 129 movies reviewed here, and 30 lists compiled here.