98 Time November 4, 2019
REVIEW
Here’s to you,
Mrs. Fletcher
By Judy Berman
“You have To be nice To women,” eve FleTcher,
played by a sublime Kathryn Hahn, tells her son Brendan
(Jackson White). They’re in the car, on their way to drop him
off at college. Before they’d left, she’d overheard him in his
room with a girl, using misogynistic language obviously bor-
rowed from porn. Eve had also fielded a last-minute phone
call from her ex, Ted (Josh Hamilton), informing her that he
wasn’t free to help her move their only child into his freshman
dorm after all. She’s worried Brendan will become just like his
father—with good reason.
Eve and Brendan are the dual protagonists of Mrs. Fletcher,
a richly observed adaptation of a novel by creator Tom Per-
rotta (The Leftovers) that premieres on HBO on Oct. 27. A sin-
gle mom who runs a senior center, Eve is constantly caring for
others—many of them oblivious, ungrateful men. Brendan is
the most oblivious and ungrateful of all, a casually cruel jock
who has swaggered through high school bullying less popular
kids, treating girls like chew toys and avoiding introspection.
If he had any self-awareness, he’d see that he’s really angry at
his dad, who’s busy with his new family.
That, of course, leaves Eve to manage Brendan’s barely re-
pressed emotions. Though their relationship looks one-sided
at first, it slowly reveals itself to be symbiotic. She’s made her
son the focal point of her life, not just because she’s such a
generous person (though she is), but also because tending to
his needs distracts her from her own. Brendan doesn’t real-
ize that he relies on his mom for moral guidance. And by de-
manding his love, she puts a check on his selfishness.
△
Alone in an
empty nest, Eve
(Hahn) logs on to
the Internet and
rediscovers her
desiresSeparated for the first time since his
birth, mother and son both struggle.
The bro-ish immaturity that made him
king of his high school doesn’t fly in col-
lege, where women expect a modicum
of emotional intelligence from their
dates. Faced with an abundance of free
time, Eve takes a writing class—where
she flirts with a thoughtful 19-year-old
(Owen Teague) whom Brendan used to
pick on in school—and develops an ad-
diction to porn. (The latter is indeed
a theme.) She’s beginning to acknowl-
edge her desires just as her son is flail-
ing toward an awareness that the world
doesn’t revolve around his. Both char-
acters are recalibrating their identities
and aspirations.There’s a loT to love about this show,
from the concision of its 30-minute epi-
sodes to an all-female roster of direc-
tors that includes Nicole Holofcener
(Friends With Money) and Obvious
Child’s Gillian Robespierre. Hahn may
well be typecast as a sexually frustrated
woman, but she’s also the only actor
I can think of who could do justice to
such a simultaneously sweet and nasty
role. Perrotta gives supporting charac-
ters surprising depth: Brendan’s love
interest Chloe (Jasmine Cephas Jones)
is a social-justice crusader with a weak-
ness for alpha males. Eve’s teacher
Margo (Jen Richards) is a trans writer
cautiously pursuing a mutual attraction
with a straight cisgender man. The show
never soft-pedals Brendan’s loutishness.
It bears witness to the many indignities
of female middle age.
Yet its greatest contribution may be
its sensitive portrait of a mother and her
son. You’d think we would see more of
these stories, considering the perennial
popularity of father-daughter narratives
on TV, from the superdads of Friday
Night Lights and Veronica Mars to the
chilling patriarchs of Twin Peaks and
this year’s ABC oddity Almost Family.
Then again, Hollywood so greatly pre-
fers young women to middle-aged ones
that the omission isn’t really a surprise.
It is, however, a shame. Half a century
after women’s liberation, with peace
between the genders more elusive than
ever, Mrs. Fletcher affirms that the bond
between moms and their boys is a cru-
cial piece of the puzzle. □TimeOff Television