Financial Times Europe - 09.11.2019 - 10.11.2019

18 ★ FTWeekend 9 November/10 November 2019

I

n March this year, Jamie Erlicht,

Apple’s co-head of TV, announced

that the tech giant was developing

“some of the best stories ever told”

foritsnewstreamingplatform.This

sounded like a possibly overambitious

promisebackthen,andperhapsmoreso

now following the rather modest launch

of Apple TV+ last Friday for a monthly

subscription fee of £4.99 in the UK

($4.99 in the US). The initial selection

consists of just four main seriesspan-

ning drama (The Morning Show,For All

Mankind), comedy (Dickinson) and

sci-fi/fantasy (See), a feature-length

documentary (The Elephant Queen), and

a handful of children’s shows.There are,

however, numerous additional series in

production. For now, here’s a look at the

mostnoteworthyshowssofar.

The Morning Show

This is a elicitous choice of series tof

spearhead the launch of Apple TV+ —

andnotbecauseit’saparticularlystrong

piece of drama. First, it has what the

staffers at thetitular news programme

mightcall“goodoptics”,namelythestar

casting of Jennifer Aniston, Reese With-

erspoon and Steve Carell. ButThe Morn-

ing Show lso serves as a kind of tacita

advertisement for streaming platforms

by revolving around the decay of staid,

traditionaltelevision.“We’reallgoingto

get bought out by tech,” an executive

says at one point, in a moment of laugh-

ably meta self-promotion on a par with

the rampant product placement of

First bite of the Apple

Television Apple TV+|

leads the next generation

of streaming services.

But does its content deliver?

Dan Einav takes a view

Above: Jennifer

Aniston and

Steve Carell in

‘The Morning

Show’

Left: Joel

Kinnaman stars

in ‘For All

Mankind’

Applegadgetsthroughouttheshow.

So what’s the story? Morning glory

becomes dawn despair as allegations of

sexual impropriety against beloved pre-

senter Mitch Kessler (Carell) lead to his

immediate dismissal, leaving his fellow

host Alex Levy (Aniston) adrift without

a co-anchor. But within hours, formal

condemnation of Mitch’s behaviour

turns into cynical backroom talk about

howthe crisis could boost ratings and

re-energise a complacent Alex. As the

network’s head of news Corey Ellison

(Billy Crudup) explains through his

scheming rictus grin: “We need enter-

tainment,notjournalism.”

At the same time, firebrandmuck-

raker Bradley Jackson (Witherspoon)

becomes a viral phenomenon after she

is recorded railing against the political

circus at a protest in Virginia. You don’t

even need to have seen the trailer to

guess that she’llbe on the show’s guest

couch the next day, and in the vacant

anchorchairbytheendoftheweek.

It’s this neatness that makesThe

Morning Show oth watchable andb

devoid of real substance. Although the

issuesraisedbytheseries—the#MeToo

movement, women asserting their

agency, the dilution of journalism —

could hardly be more timely, they are

often presented in conveniently pack-

aged, grandstanding speeches in which

thewriter’shandistookeenlyfelt.

The series is at its best when it gives

Alex, Mitch and Bradley the chance to

respond to theircareer upheavals in

more naturalistic dialogue. Their char-

acterisations alsoleave room for some

ambiguity — Mitch isn’t quite the toxic

villain, Bradley isn’t overbearingly self-

righteous, and Alex, self-serving, vul-

nerable and volatile, finally affords Ani-

ston the opportunityto exorcise the

ghostof“RachelFromFriends”.

AAAEE

Dickinson

Years before she became an anxious,

agoraphobic recluse — oppressed by as

little as a “certain slant of light” — Emily

Dickinson was a whip-smart, incorrigi-

ble rebel. Or so we’re led to believe by

Dickinson, a charmingly idiosyncratic

series that paints an irreverent portrait

of the poet as a young woman.

High-minded literary purists might

roll their eyes at the appropriation of

one of America’s greatest writers fora

coming-of-age comedy — but there’s

something very enjoyable about watch-

ing a preternaturally gifted young poet

kvetch and bicker just like any other

angstyteenager.

The pattern of conflating highbrow

artistic pursuits with the mundane hap-

penings of everyday life is established

from the first scene in which Emily

(Hailee Steinfeld), furtively working on

her juvenilia, is asked to go fetch water

before daybreak. “This is such bullshit,”

she whines as careful prosody amus-

inglygiveswaytoadolescentpetulance.

But Emily has every right to feel

aggrieved at her home life. Her callous

motherrepeatedlytriestooffloadheron

to undesirable suitors, while her father,

who oscillates between doting and dra-

conian, forbids Emily to publish her

poetry. Meanwhile, her best friend and

secret lover Sue has just got engaged to

Dickinson’s oafish brother. No wonder

the only solace she finds is in the imag-

ined personification of Death, played

impishlybyrapperWizKhalifa.

The show’s knowingly anachronistic

use of modern slang and hip-hoprein-

forces the timelessness of Emily’s frus-

trations at the codified nature of her

world, and it does well to maintain a

light touch as the fledgling poet wittily

skewers, rather than just laments, the

inequalities she faces. The script is per-

haps more gently entertaining than it is

outright funny, but it allows Steinfeld to

showcase her considerable talent for

playing precocious, world-weary teens

in a way that never becomes grating or

one-note. There are moments of sur-

prising tenderness — between the illicit

lovers, and Emily and her father — that

help elevateDickinson o being moret

than merely a sitcom with a gimmick.

AAAAE

For All Mankind

In July 1969, millions of people across

the world watched the scarcely compre-

hensible footage of a man stepping on to

the alien, lunar ground and heard him

deliver those indelible words: “For my

people, my country and the Marxist-

Leninistwayoflife.”

SobeginsFor All Mankind,analternate

history drama that asks what impact a

Soviet space race victory might have

had back on Earth. The answer, based

on the first handful of episodes, is not

quiteasseismicaswemightexpect.

Inthisdivertedtimeline,theApollo11

landing does still take place; Nasa,

despite global humiliation, continues

preparations for future missions hilew

pioneering space engineer Wernher von

Braun is publicly shamed (unlike in real

life) for his Nazi past. But really the

most compelling divergence from actu-

alitysofaristhataftertheRussianssend

a woman to the Moon,the Americans

are prompted to launch their own pro-

grammetofosterafemaleastronaut.

The show largely fails to take off until

this plotline is introduced in the third

episode, in which 20 hopefuls under-

take a punishing training course. Before

then,there’splentyofsobertalkinHou-

ston about not ceding the future to the

Russians, and someless sober bar-room

talk among the astronauts who helmed

the rehearsal Apollo 10 mission and are

now haunted by how close they came.

Bound to the exploration of the macro-

cosm are the wives we see trying to hold

together the domestic microcosms their

Nasahusbandssoreadilyneglect.

Although well-acted, these opening

episodes occasionally make for a wear-

ing watch, as too many subplots and

peripheral characters are introduced

with little progression. In bothits devia-

tion from history, and the protracted

natureofitsstorytelling,For All Mankind

seems more interested in small steps

thangiantleaps.AAAEE

Going by this initial output, Apple

TV+so farfalls some way short of pro-

viding us with unmissable TV — let

alone deliveringsome of the greatest

narratives committed to screen — and

audiences will probably find little rea-

son to switch allegiance from estab-

lished platforms such as Netflix, Ama-

zon Prime (and HBO and Hulu in the

US) just yet. But we shouldn’t be too

damningtoosoon:it’seasytoforgetthat

Netflix’s first year of producing exclu-

sive content yielded just one series, the

largelyforgettablecomedyLilyhammer.

More Apple TV+ releases in the

coming months, such as M Night

Shyamalan’sServant, andTruth Be Told,

a crime thriller led by Aaron Paul and

Octavia Spencer, will bolster the stable

of shows and possibly help tempt more

viewersintotakingafirstbiteoforiginal

Applecontent.

‘The Morning Show’ is

a tacit advert for

streaming: it revolves

around the decay of

traditional TV

Kate Herron

Londoner Kate

Herron (born

1987) was

making short

films and

temping at a fire

extinguisher

factory when she

learnt she’d be directing half a season

of Netflix’sSex Education, the British

comedy that wooed a global audience

with its American high school-esque

setting. Herron found her own US fan

base through the show: she was

recently announced as the left-of-field

choice to directLoki, a Marvel Studios

TV show for Disney+ that will propel

her into the Hollywood mainstream.

Bo Burnham

A teenaged Bo

Burnham (born

1990) shot to

fame on

YouTube singing

comedic songs

such as “My

Whole Family

Thinks I’m Gay”. Last year, the now ex-

YouTuber caught critics by surprise

when his debut feature filmEighth

Grade urned out to be an astonishinglyt

vivid portrayal of American adolescent

anxiety. Burnham’s slate for the next

year is the millennial “portfolio career”

writ large: he’s working on another high

school film, acting alongside Carey

Mulligan inPromising Young Women,

and penning songs for theSesame

Street ovie.m

Mati Diop

French-

Senegalese

director Mati

Diop, 37, had a

first career as an

actor, including

in Claire Denis’s

2008 family

drama 5 Shots of Rum 3. The following

year, she created a short narrative film

about the effects of migration in

Senegal, an exploration that culminated

a decade later in the feature-length

“ghost love story”Atlantics. The film

won Diop the Grand Prix at Cannes

2019 — making her the first black

woman to do so — and next year will be

in contention for an Oscar.

Kantemir Balagov

The odds of a successful film career

weren’t stacked in Kantemir Balagov’s

favour, given he comes from a remote

region of the north Caucasus and

makes difficult, albeit beautiful, films

about ethnic conflict and PTSD. And

yet the 28-year-old Balagov ash

received

international

acclaim for both

Closeness(2017)

andBeanpole

(2019). It’s

unlikely he’ll

start releasing

blockbusters

anytime soon, but after clinching the

Un Certain Regardbest director prize

at Cannes, his ascent to the art house

heavyweight class seems imminent.

Phillip Youmans

Nineteen-year-old Phillip Youmans

made Tribeca Film Festival favourite

Burning Cane hile still atw school — a

fact so impressiveit risks overpowering

discussion of the

work itself. The

film is an

astonishing

exploration of

masculinity and

religious

scapegoating in

the Baptist

Church, expanded from a short to

feature-length under the mentorship of

Beasts of the Southern Wild irectord

Benh Zeilten. Youmans is now studying

at NYU Film School and working on a

film about the Black Panthers.

Harriet Fitch Little

FIVE TO WATCH Film and TV’s rising talents

NextGen

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