Binge-r #230: Doll & Em + Tribes of Europa
That’s What Friends Are For: Emily Mortimer (Em) and Dolly Wells (Doll) in Doll & Em
DOLL & EM S1 + S2
Streaming Service: Stan
Availability: All six episodes of both seasons now streaming
Originally airing on pay television in 2014 and 2015, the two seasons of this small but succinctly observed comedy about the pitfalls and pride that serve friendship for better or worse have snuck onto Stan as a welcome back catalogue acquisition. Best friends in real life, the British actors Emily Mortimer (Match Point, Relic) and Dolly Wells (Some Girls, the Netflix Dracula) play the fictionalised pals Doll and Em. The former is a successful actor come to Los Angeles for a lead role, the latter is a last minute arrival hired as a personal assistant so she can escape a bad break-up and waitressing in London. What could go wrong, you instantly wonder, but the series, created and written by Mortimer, Wells and its director, Azazel Jacobs, is also interested in what needs to go right.
The pair have been intimately connected since childhood – the very first shot of them together is intertwined on a couch, Em stroking Doll’s hair by way of comfort – but employment and the Hollywood food chain distort the dynamic. Something is off from the first night, and these compressed episodes are full of finely observed moments and broken personal space. The humour is bittersweet, with silly swings and celebrity satire, but as a portrait of friendship it has an uncomfortable depth. Both women want to make the best of the situation, but they can’t help seeing the other anew when looking either up or down. There are moments when they argue which have a fearful tug, because there are underlying truths at work that the show has drawn out with a light touch.
The famous person playing a crueller/dumber/hornier version of themselves is a comedic staple now, but Doll & Em was marginally ahead of the wave in 2014 and it made good use of its good sports. In the second episode Dolly upsets a child actor, which gets her berated by Susan Sarandon, who then regally befriends her later on after they get high together. This Los Angeles is a sunny place outlined by lurking shadows, with the female crime epic Em is starring in going from a source of bemusement to an example of the constant struggles that awaits high profile women in Hollywood; the fulsome praise can start to sound antagonistic, the constant judgments cruel. The second season takes the duo to Broadway, with Olivia Wilde and Ewan McGregor among the guests, but both seasons of this series (each collectively just a feature film in length) transcend their locale. There’s nothing haphazard about Doll & Em. The characters may be dysfunctional, but the show is definitely not.
Black Widow: Melika Foroutan (Varvara) in Tribes of Europa
TRIBES OF EUROPA S1 (Netflix, all six episodes now streaming): Whatever your taste in dystopian/feudal sagas, Netflix’s German adventure about the (literal) pursuit of power amongst the warring microstates of a collapsed 2074 Europe has you covered: tick off a crazed warlord running a slave trade (Mad Max: Fury Road), monstrous black-clad warriors (the Dune trailer), teens on the run across a dangerous landscape (The 100), and execution by sharpened blade (Game of Thrones). Does it actually hold together? Partially. When a futuristic jet crash lands near the idyllic forest village that’s home to an earnest trio of siblings – Liv (Henriette Confurius), Kiano (Emilio Sakraya), and Elja (David Ali Rashed) – they discover a mysterious cube that soon separates them through invasion, capture, or fugitive status. What this isn’t is The Road, with enough scope for all kinds of militaristic societies, technologies, leather outfits, and hopes for a better future. Tribes of Europa’s true specialty is in the coldly menacing etiquette of the villains, closely followed by bloody deaths. Mark the show down as a back-up in case you run out of better choices.
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
New on Netflix: Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle’s Yesterday (2019, 116 minutes) – a comedy about a struggling British muso (Himesh Patel) who finds himself in a world where only he knows the songs of The Beatles and soon claims them – is very dumb and vaguely amusing, even with the comedic skills of Ed Sheeran, but the finale is a bridge too far.
New on SBS on Demand: These days Tom Tykwer is focused on the compelling Netflix historic drama series Babylon Berlin, but almost 25 years ago with Run Lola Run (1998, 77 minutes) he sent a jolt of elemental energy through the arthouse cinema scene with this bracing and influential alternate timelines thriller about a young woman (Franka Potente) racing to save her boyfriend’s life.
New on Stan: A dystopian masterpiece that after 15 years remains prophetic and immersive, Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men (2006, 110 minutes), with Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, is deeply humanist filmmaking with remarkable action set-pieces; the ultimate Vegas movie, Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995, 179 minutes) adds an electric Sharon Stone to the Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci dynamic in the story of the mob’s self-immolation.
>> Missed last week’s BINGE-R? Click here to read about Netflix’s bonkers psychological thriller Behind Her Eyes and the new Tom Hanks western News of the World.
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