The Curse

The Curse

The Curse is a series that can only be described as awkward to say the least. I will go on record and say that it is not only painful but extremely painful to watch all ten of its episodes with most of them being an hour long. If one were to sum up the whole series, words like ‘entertainment’ shall never be used in any context. It is just painful and painful. However, it is also clever, interesting, strangely captivating and different from anything else that you will be able to find on television this year. It will, without a shadow of doubt, receive polarizing views.

I must be a masochist because this show makes my day. Directed by Nathan for You and The Rehearsal’s Nathan Fielder who looks perfectly comfortable with awkwardness and Uncut Gems’ co-director Benny Safdie who induces stress into every moment, the prospective ridiculousness of the show The Curse unfurls about a couple Asher (Fielder) and Whitney Siegel (Emma Stone) attempting to tape a reality TV show, working title Flipanthropy.

The idea is of a Queer Eye-type format where they do “nice things” for the uninterested citizens of Española, New Mexico. And those good deeds are also marketing for the Siegels’ eco home business which consists of cheaply purchasing properties and flipping them for profit with the help of their whites’ attempt at gentrification of the place through sterilized designs of coffee houses, denim boutiques, and lots of locally sourced pottery.

This is a satire waiting to happen and the show does not disappoint in achieving its first goals. Asher and Whitney keep trying to convince themselves that there is nothing wrong in what they do, but they do so even when the base of their business is soon exposed to be as contemptible as what they claim to be against. A more modest show would pause the competition here and examine empty altruism as an organizing principle of the plot, but The Curse opens out into more bizarre space, consuming larger themes than before as it moves forward.

The discussion starts with gentrification and the white savior complex. It goes much further as well as examines the art world, the commodification of suffering, the performative ecological activism, and the American ascent. It is also a nasty commentary on television and entertainment on the whole, which could explain why it’s hard to binge the show as a series: the assertion is made at a visceral level.

The Siegels are unbearably eager to bring their new television pilot to life and the people who “benefit” from their “kindness” are mere an instrumental trio headed by their offensive producer, Dougie (Safdie). Dougie brags about having picked on a clueless Asher back in their childhood and his last reality show pilot was so bad that it is highly likely that the format will be in space within a very short time.

While the Siegels are attempting to build their real-estate business as well as their careers as television personalities, barriers arise: the presence of reporters who tell the truth about the image put out by the couple, as well as the burden of a designation which might even be supernatural in nature. Asher has come out to the parking lot to give a young drink vendor cash for the cameras but only has a one hundred US dollar bill.

He gives it to them, then after the picture is taken asks them to return it so that he may exchange it and give the child fifty dollars instead. As it turns out, that child had all the reasons in the world to curse him. In issuing this criticism and analyzing the case, the authors are able to examine the nature of horror when a long and torturous exchange of what can only be described as a ‘money shot’ changes its perception for the satisfactory into a new style of horror. To say nothing of the endless discussions about genitalia with the relatives all relived in a rather bizarre manner.

These public displays of stupidity are perceived as the low points of the show but in reality they come from a constant sense of anxiety that never fades away. There is a monotonous backdrop music that is not emotional but feels like it lacks tension. Often, we see the characters through dirty and bug-smeared closed windows that make the scene feel like overhearing someone’s private thoughts and everything is just too much.

Fielder’s Asher tends to come across as outright unpleasant and stingy. Stone’s Whitney is also unpleasant, but conceals her unpleasantness behind a stiffened smile as though she is too self-aware and too scared to get it wrong in public. Their own sustainable house falls under certified passive house (yes that’s a real certification scheme, although a passive ‘branding’ is used for humorous effect here), however it has now been constructed into a sweatbox, and ‘improved’ with rather needlessly reflective glass for such a sustainable purpose. It turns into a kind of mounted tank, featuring images with a good deal of stage-managed authority attached to them.

The Curse ebbs one’s endurance considerably. Numerous scenes are stretched out to extreme lengths and, at their nadir, provoke such discomfort that would make the most cringing moments of the program The Office look like the most riveting moments of an episode of The Repair Shop. But it’s breathtaking with tension, the ending is epic and I cannot recommend watching it highly enough.

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