If you've ever wondered what it would look like if a joint smoked back, and then started doubting the meaning of the film industry -- you've got The Studio. Seth Rogen stars in a series about losing his grip on what you never quite grasped.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
Seth Rogen plays Seth Rogen, but this time with a slightly deeper wrinkle between his eyebrows and an insecurity not just caused by weed. He's Matt Remick, newly appointed director of a classic Hollywood studio, and it feels like watching a dog try to control a steam engine. With champagne glasses in one hand and the fear of TikTok in the other.
“The Studio” on Apple TV+ is not a satire. It's a confession. A meta-comedy about an industry that has long managed to take itself seriously, even when it serves up superheroes in latex. Now it stands with its pants down and the PR team nearby. The series is split between rambling absurd humour and an almost woeful undressing of how little control anyone actually has.
Matt Remick is not a leader. He's a slothful man with social anxiety, placed in an office where the nerve is replaced by post-its and prequels. His employees are caricatures, but also effeminate: the producer who dreams of prestige projects and ends up making a musical about Jonestown, for example. They all walk around in the same zombie-like state: hopeful, burnt-out and shamelessly strategic.
This is where Rogen proves his worth. Not as the class clown, but as the perhaps only man in Hollywood who can say “we're ridiculous” without sounding offended. He plays his part with a mixture of humility and desperation, as if he were on his way to a TED Talk he himself doesn't believe in. It works.
And Catherine O'Hara. We're going to have to talk about her. She plays the studio's old guard -- a kind of war-traumatized PR general -- with the same panache as a grand danois in a department store. She steals the scenes. Not because they're written for her, but because she understands the absurdity better than most.
“The Studio” could be a self-fed insider series. But it's more. It is a product of its time: an industry that is afraid of dying and therefore films its own death rally and calls it streaming content. The series is fun, but it's the laugh you get when you've cried too long. It makes you want to shout: Make a movie that matters! But no one hears you. Everyone is on Zoom.
Reflection
“The Studio” isn't revolutionary, but it's honest enough to be felt. Seth Rogen has made his most mature series to date. You may not remember all the jokes. But you remember the feeling of witnessing a system slowly imploding. With a smile.
4 out of 5 stars
