Why the Story Feels Familiar

However what is new right here is the best way these reveals and movies appear crafted particularly for the social media second. A lot as with Oscar bait (movies that appear like they’ve been created solely for award-season glory), initiatives run the chance of feeling like engagement bait in the event that they’re too blatant about it. I first observed this when Netflix dropped the trailer for I Care a Lot in 2021. The movie stars Rosamund Pike as a scammer who takes benefit of lonely aged individuals by turning into their court-appointed guardian, after which robbing them of their property. It was unimaginable to not be reminded of her position as Amy Dunne in Gone Lady, a equally manipulative villain who tried to border her husband for her homicide. The truth is, proper all the way down to Pike’s hyper-neat bob, it felt like we had been supposed to be reminded of Gone Lady. That was the purpose. I ended up dissatisfied when I Care a Lot wasn’t half as sensible as Gone Lady. (As a result of, actually, how may it’s?)

There appears to be an at the least unconscious consciousness of this on-line, the place casting has turn into a meme in itself. When rumors concerning the solid for Glass Onion began to emerge, it appeared like there was barely an A-lister who wasn’t showing within the 2022 Knives Out sequel. This spawned numerous memes about fantasy castings. One thing comparable occurred with the all-star Barbie film and The White Lotus. (“Ship her to the White Lotus!” has turn into a shorthand for actresses whom followers love essentially the most once they’re being just a little bit evil.) Journalist Michael Baumann calls this fan casting. In response to the memes about Glass Onion, he wrote about how casting information has gone from an insider subject for business publications to a topic of fanfare on social media. “Everybody has some dream mixture of solid and story,” he wrote. “Possibly the film in your head canon won’t ever get made, however discovering out that [Edward] Norton and [Janelle] Monáe will share a display with Benoit Blanc scratches a few of that itch.”

I’ve positively participated in these memes (and I’m additionally operating an unofficial marketing campaign to pressure collection creator Mike White to solid Allison Williams in The White Lotus). Besides, there may be nonetheless one thing about it that irks me. A number of years again, I observed that some TV reveals gave the impression to be more and more geared towards “memeable” moments on the expense of plot. The second season of Huge Little Lies, for instance, appeared to turn into a parody of itself, from Laura Dern snarling “I cannot not be wealthy!” to Meryl Streep’s guttural screaming on the dinner desk. Casting that feels overly predictable (and, crucially, shareable) conveys an identical sense that decision-makers are being led by their viewers, moderately than having the arrogance to take followers to sudden and difficult locations.

Meghan Fahy in The Good Couple

Giving viewers extra of what they’re accustomed to may appear innocent, however I fear that this kind of typecasting through algorithm will finish with actors being pigeonholed into sure roles. Historically, typecasting has disproportionately affected ladies and other people of shade. Jennifer Lopez, for instance, has spoken prior to now about being typecast due to her ethnicity, and Katherine Heigl has additionally mentioned her issue branching out past rom-coms. (Not everybody will get to be Robert De Niro or Adam Sandler, flitting between horrible and status initiatives.) In The Good Couple, Greer finds herself creatively unfulfilled, churning out barely totally different variations of the identical novel to followers who lap the books up regardless of the declining high quality. It’s laborious to not discover the parallels with Kidman herself,as soon as once more taking part in a girl with darkish secrets and techniques who’s, to cite her flamboyant occasion planner: “kill-somebody-and-get-away-with-it wealthy.” (Fortunately her subsequent undertaking, A24’s erotic thriller Babygirl, appears tougher.)

Within the opening credit of The Good Couple, the characters placed on a flash mob efficiency on the seaside, set to “Felony” by Meghan Trainor. “Something that feels this good,” Trainor sings as they dance in formation. “Effectively, it have to be unlawful / It have to be unlawful.” That’s kind of the way it feels to click on “subsequent episode” a present like this, which appears to have been made to be was #content material by Very On-line individuals for every week, earlier than disappearing eternally. It’s much like these little issues all of us do typically, like getting a supply driver from an app to carry us one thing we may have sourced ourselves, or bribing a toddler in trade for a number of moments of silence. The short-term advantages are simply too irresistible, regardless of the wider results.

The antidote to this nervousness is artwork that’s so good, or shocking, that it exceeds our expectations. Like Challengers, the horny tennis film that was a lot extra, starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist. From the surface, it appeared like pretty brazen engagement bait, however Challengers ended up turning into one of many standout movies of the yr to this point. Crucially, it proved {that a} memeable social media second is definitely totally different from a real cultural second, which holds our consideration for longer, harnessing artwork’s energy to make us suppose otherwise about individuals, relationships, and the complicated job of navigating the world.

As compared, perhaps the issue with The Good Couple is that, whereas there’s nothing flawed with being an unashamedly “fairly good” present, it’s disappointing when a undertaking doesn’t dwell as much as the promise of its solid. The Kidman-Fanning-Fahy trifecta deserved extra. This collection will nearly definitely prime Netflix’s charts for every week or so. There can be memes, too, till the following shiny factor comes alongside. But it surely wasn’t fairly adequate to distract me from the truth that, too typically, we’re being spoon-fed.

Louis Staples is a contract tradition author and critic based mostly in London, UK. He writes “Cultural Staples” — a fortnightly tradition essay at Bazaar.com. His work is featured in The Lower, The Guardian, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Selection.