The two shows represent a blast of contrast: Adolescence is gritty and minimalist. The Studio is noisily over the top. Yet both are dominating the conversation among critics and cinephiles and are impacting viewers worldwide.
Adolescence is topping Netflix charts in 71 countries with its probe of the “male rage” lurking in a benign 13-year-old boy (played by Owen Cooper). Created and directed by a British actor Stephen Graham, the four-part series is reminiscent of ’60s-era documentary filmmaking.
The Studio from Apple TV+ is a throwback to the fierce satiric comedies of Blake Edwards (The SOBs in 1971) depicting an angst-ridden studio chief mobilizing a $200 million art film. The embattled chief is played by Seth Rogen, once the king of cannabis, who persuades Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard, among others, to assume the roles of auteur ogres.
The Studio has benefited from headlines in the Hollywood trades that keep placing studio chiefs on the endangered species list. Matt Remick (Rogen) is the new chief of Continental Pictures who is pressured to create a franchise built around Kool-Aid – yes, the drink. As such he connects with Scorsese who is determined to make a movie about the 1978 Jonestown massacre, where 900 people died drinking Kool-Aid. OK, it’s a stretch.
The Remick character predictably wanders through The Studio in a state of panic, surrounded by hysterical marketing advisers, bewildered actors and a demanding corporate boss who has no idea what he wants.
As such, The Studio is shrill and talky, its chaotic scenes sparked by random performers like Charlize Theron, Zac Efron, Olivia Wilde and Sarah Polley, all of whom want something from Remick.
The Studio is very much the creation of Rogen and longterm writing partner Evan Goldberg, film nerds from Canada who are eager to surpass their Superbad-Knocked Up genre hits of 1999. The Rogen of that era would like to wander the filmmaking landscape, asking filmmakers “how did you actually get that made?” His innocent questions were always softened by stoner jokes.
One misses that Rogen in The Studio: His Matt Remick is insistently insecure, if not paranoid. His colleagues seem eager to plunge him into the defeats he edgily anticipates.
Howard plays himself as a tyrannical auteur who petulantly refuses to cut a vacuous scene from his overlong thriller, warding off pleas only to change his mind at the moment of truth. Those of us who’ve encountered Howard in “real life” were impressed by his performance since he is, in fact, a gracious collaborator – not an autocrat like Blake Edwards of old.
So is the Matt Remick character believable?
Having myself weathered battles with auteurs as an executive of three studios, I empathize with his tensions. I also understand his zeal to create mega-budget franchise films that try to emulate the standards of the great filmmakers.
But is that a realistic objective in today’s landcape dominated by Amazon, Apple and Netflix?
The Studio might have worked better had Rogen played himself as he used to be — the awkward stoner who asked nerdy questions in his innocent quest to learn the rules of the game. Rules he could then cheerfully disregard.
Graham of Adolescence has also reached a fascinating turning point. His show defies normal rules of TV filmmaking, each scene made up of one carefully choreographed shot. The camera rides along between school and police station and home, immersing viewers in the claustrophobic rush of events.
Could Graham ever have imagined its impact? In Britain, Keir Starmer, the prime minister, interrupted parliamentary debate to inform members that he watched the show with his family and recommended colleagues follow suit.
On one level, Adolescence thus represented the fulfillment of Matt Remick’s dream: A blockbuster built around a modest budget, its structure and release controlled by a non-celebrity filmmaker who sipped tea, not Kool-Aid.
