Honored hepatologist Toby Fleischman (Jesse Eisenberg) suddenly disappears ex-wife Rachel (Claire Danes) – leaves the children in his care and disappears from the streets of New York. Despite a falling apart relationship, Toby wants to find a spouse, discovering her and himself from new sides along the way.
Based on the novel of the same name by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleischman in Trouble opens each episode with an upside-down view of New York City. In this rather hackneyed cinematic technique, all the regret and despair of the protagonist quite tangibly accumulated. Life went not just downhill, but upside down, and the fiction became true: careerist wife Rachel deliberately left him alone, destroying all plans, nightly dates and independence. It is now hardly possible to manage to maintain the built image of a diligent father and doctor. It is so hard for Toby that he has to call for help from long-forgotten friends as therapists in order to pour out his soul and understand how, where, and most importantly, why move on. An existential crisis in the midst of a raging ocean of 40-year-olds has never seemed so merciless.
The new FX/Hulu project may seem overly literary and symbolic, reminiscent of newspaper columns, but its insight and irony overcome any inconsistencies, keeping it afloat during a period of plot storms. Interest in the characters also comes from the authors of the series, including two pairs of spouses nominated for an Oscar: Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (“Little Miss Sunshine”, “Ruby Sparks”), as well as Shari Spriger Berman and Robert Pulcini ( “American Splendor”). Their experience could very well be an equally important part of the adaptation of the original source, the result of the advice “write what you know” correctly applied. “Fleischman” consists of eight episodes, each accompanied by a voice-over from Libby (Lizzy Caplan), Toby’s college friend, a former successful writer who sacrificed her career for her family. In the series, the characters are faced with their own shattered expectations, the destabilization of mental health, the loss of a carefree youth – and, most revealing and truthful, they do practically nothing to solve these problems, infantilely blaming other people for their troubles.
Eisenberg again brilliantly copes with the role of a neurotic, bringing to an annoyingly transcendental level the loss of self-control and a state of moral decline. Yet there is a particular masochistic delight in watching a Social Network star under such circumstances. Danes, after eight seasons of Homeland, returns to her alter ego of a “woman under the influence” who has built a career and a semblance of a family, not at all counting on a second one. The matrimonial quagmire of skirmishes and high-pitched dialogue with a complete lack of understanding is reminiscent of Baumbach’s “The Story of Marriage”, fragments of the modernized writings of Woody Allen, echoes of “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn and David Fincher. The latter comes to mind with the difference that the wife deliberately demonized by the protagonist turns out to be not a terrorizing maniac at all, but a part of a raging and unfair reality, guilty and unhappy just like her furious pseudo-righteous husband.
Fleishman, perhaps, is not actively sharing the “trouble” that happened and the changed identity of the characters with the audience, even managing to read the moralizing of the audience in many ways: here are the negative consequences of online dating, and light condemnations of the Manhattan elites. The main trump card of the series is hard-won empathy, which does not depend on age parameters. Here, confused former children are invited to an eight-hour uncomfortable conversation, actively waiting for them to begin to recognize themselves from a completely different angle and move from screaming to whispering.
