Shalom Auslander’s new Showtime series Happyish comes with its fists shaking and an energy and fury hard to dismiss. Brash ideas vibrate inside its DNA and it has an unconventional but refreshing disdain for our modern-day media age to boot. If only it could earn the edge it desires so desperately, it could be a vivacious voice for our TV landscape. As it is, however, Sluggish would be a fitting name, for this is one tepidly uneven and tremulously tedious pilot.
It’s hard to ignore the history behind this pilot. Initially shot as a vehicle for Philip Seymour Hoffman, the project was revised when the actor unfortunately passed last year. Showtime picked Happyish up for a full season beforehand, with Hoffman to headline and John Cameron Mitchell behind the camera on the pilot, but Steve Coogan came onboard to take over the late actor’s role and then Ken Kwapis called the shots on the newly re-shot pilot.
To the Brit’s credit, besides one reference to his overseas origins, Coogan adjusts into the role nicely. He gives the character a mix of abrasive and contemplative ease, and makes him have the charisma of his on-screen personalities but still provides a more restrained performance than usual for the actor. Were Happyish with more focus, the actor could really accelerate with this character.
The biggest problem, however, with this Showtime series is it comes like a bat out of hell, soapboxing its mind and cussing as many times as it can. It comes across as most amateurish when it means to be sophisticated and, for a show so hellbent to look down on the youth, it feels oddly, and ironically, immature with its aging protagonist.
Before getting too ahead, who is this man in question? That would be Thom Payne, a depressed marketing executive who must confined to the changes of his business and the struggles to be a good father. He still has desires in both in life and career, with plans to write a novel and hopes to make his wife Lee (Kathryn Hahn) and their son Julius (Sawyer Shipman) pleased. His inability to understand today’s culture causes him much distress. However, he tries to best to make himself as —you guessed it —“happyish” as he can be.
Written by Auslander, this pilot, titled, “Starring Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus and Alois Alzheimer,” is crippled by how repetitive yet inconsistent it becomes in a mere half-hour time. Every character sounds the same, and as it goes from flipping off Thomas Jefferson to calling children assholes in just the first four minutes, it’s hard to ignore Auslander’s desperation to be super edgy and shockingly cutting edge. This forced cynicism only grows pettier as Happyish prattles onto cheap shots at Mad Men and becomes an Aaron Sorkin-lite satire on the modern market corporation machine when focus shifts onto Thom’s advertising position.
Add into the mix odd surreal moments like Thom talking down a suicidal Ernie Keebler or witnessing a test study group determine whether or not he should kill himself because he doesn’t juice up or work out — not to mention some clumsy editing and not real sense of pacing —and Happyish comes across as somewhat unfinished or, more appropriately, unfurnished. There’s seems to be no stern idea for where this show wants to direct itself. It’s more perverse than cynical, so it’s not a particularly dark comedy, yet it’s too juvenile in its execution to relate to the fist-wagging, middle-age audiences today. It’s also doesn’t have particularly fleshed out characters or much dramatic pull, mostly just a bunch of talking heads shouting out social tirades this side of The Newsroom.
Ultimately, Happyish is a disappointing hodgepodge of good ideas that can’t quite figure itself out in this first episode. Maybe it has too much on its mind to excel. There are certainly some nicely written monologues, and a comparison to shaved vaginas to Phan Thi Kim Phuc earns a hearty laugh. But for all its big ideas and strong opinions, there’s little too hook onto here, and dishearteningly little to like. It is highly possible Auslander finds his rhythm as he continues. For now, though, it’s a fairly dull and confused series, and that’s nothing to smile about.
Image courtesy of ACE/INFphoto.com
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