The buzz around Apple TV+'s new show, The Studio, is unmissable. The show is being praised by critics and audiences alike. The buzz, the hype, the chatter, it's all well deserved. The show follows an unlikely candidate who takes over as the head of one of Hollywood's biggest studios and faces several hurdles in mounting some potential marquee projects from the outset. Some of the crises are easily manageable, some seem like monumental tasks, and all of them are downright hilarious!
On a day particularly fortuitous for him, Matt Remick (played by Seth Rogen, who has also co-created and co-directed the show) suddenly gets promoted to the head of Continental Studios after his mentor Patty (Catherine O’Hara), the woman Matt had worked under for 20 years at Continental, suddenly and unceremoniously gets terminated by the studio for her constant appeasement of directors, indulging their demands and for backing films that are more artistic and content driven than curating money-making franchises. Upon her exit, the eccentric yet moolah-minded CEO of Continental, Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston) hands the job along with all its responsibilities to Matt with one string attached: his first project has to be a film that would set up a money-making franchise based on the wall-breaking Kool-Aid Man character, the mascot for one of America's most popular beverages.
The self-professed cinephile
Matt agrees to the responsibility but not without implicit reservations. Matt is a self-professed cinephile. In all his years at the studio, he had but one dream — if he were ever to land the top job, he would create and curate a line-up of films that would not only make billions of dollars for the studio but would do so while remaining artistically fulfilling and while winning Oscars. This dilemma sets up the first episode and in fact the show itself, as Matt constantly finds himself on the fence, while trying to cater to both the CEO's demands for profitable ventures and his own need for more soulful projects. The structure of the story is such that Matt finds himself at the heart of a new crisis in every episode while the overall story arc and characters get built up simultaneously.
There are several reasons why The Studio becomes such a gripping watch while also managing to be a laugh riot. The performances, the writing, the OST are all top notch. Adam Newport-Berra's cinematography makes our voyeuristic peek into this dream factory so much fun. The show is very dynamically staged and the choreography captures the events using long takes, swish pans, and hidden stitches reminiscent of Birdman. It however does not take its style too seriously. In fact, in just the second episode, appropriately titled The Oner, it goes on to question the aesthetics and merits of oners, especially when it is used as no more than an apparent gimmick while also creating a conversation around how frustrating it can be for DPs, directors, actors and crew when they aspire to create an unbroken, true oner without hidden stitches or VFX assistance.
Paying homage to a legend
It is one of the best episodes of the show, although one cannot help but be fond of the first episode itself. The Promotion pays homage to Martin Scorsese by shooting the entire episode using tracking shots, a style made famous by Scorsese. More importantly, it pays homage to the legend by visually depicting the nefarious corporate politicking that dictates what films do get made and what films get shelved or killed. In recent years, Martin Scorsese has been one of the very few Hollywood heavyweights to have advocated against Hollywood's obsession with superheroes, CGI fests, franchise IPs and remakes.
Quite aptly, Scorsese plays himself, a legendary filmmaker who plans to don the director's hat one last time with his most ambitious project till date. He brings the same project to Continental's new studio head who promptly invests in the idea, only for a series of comic events to follow that lead up to one huge and hilarious fallout. While the series deals with the subject with humour, the tragic undertones are hard to miss since it is the sad reality of not just Hollywood but film industries around the world, including our own. What the creators and writers of the show have pulled off so brilliantly is this balance. They raise extremely pertinent questions about how film industries function in this post corporatisation era, how creative jobs are filled by financing and marketing degrees and how this often leads to hollow visual spectacles being churned out like products from a factory assembly floor, while truly artistic and meaningful cinema struggles to find not just an audience but even the finances to get off the ground to begin with.
Age-old debates and subtextual tragedies
The age-old debate of how much of filmmaking should be considered a business venture and how much of it is truly an art form. They discuss the toxicity of echo chambers where artistic decisions are mostly taken by an army of 'yes' men and sycophants, where nobody is willing or brave enough to raise logical or artistic concerns. They call out the blatant suckuppery of stars and creators, often for as little as comfortable travel plans, or the usage of a song. The writers raise all of these very serious concerns and more without ever going into doom and gloom territory. In fact, at a superficial level it is just another hilarious, typical Seth Rogen show. The subtextual tragedies might only be grasped by true cinephiles and by people who fight similar battles day in and day out.
The series boasts of a bunch of cameos – hugely popular artistes mostly playing themselves. There is one cameo by Ron Howard. First off, kudos to Ron Howard for agreeing to play himself, knowing that he would be playing a self-indulgent version of himself. That is the other side of the coin that the show does not ignore either. Legendary filmmakers who are so full of themselves and have such high opinions of their own “artistic” visions that they end up going overboard and making films that serve absolutely no purpose — neither financial nor artistic. That too is possible only when creative meetings are held in echo chambers where every individual who has been tasked with the responsibility of helping the director craft a fine film and keep his ego in check, also incidentally lacks the courage to look past the awards and blockbusters and call the director out when he goes too far.
But hold on, unlike most other shows and films that portray the corporate entities inside creative businesses as ruthless monsters, The Studio explores the vulnerabilities that hide behind expensive suits. The show has no qualms about putting the story of its protagonist on the back burner as it tries to portray the more human side of the shot-callers who often get flattered and buttered up when favours are needed, yet get abused, criticised and called names once they turn their backs. The War episode, in fact, beautifully portrays the aspirations and ambitions of two such characters who find themselves at loggerheads with each other simply because their visions don’t align.
Personally, I find Seth Rogen's journey as an artiste so intriguing. He rose to prominence as an actor, riding on his trademark stoner comedies, a brand of comedy that many felt was vulgar, cheap and unintelligent. However, once he made a decent enough name for himself, he started curating and co-creating his projects. Which brings us to today, when we see Seth as the brain behind a brilliant show like The Studio, where he also leads an absolutely brilliant cast of actors. Tasked with being the audience's anchor point while playing a character whose loyalties and motives are not just divided but often at conflict with each other, Seth Rogen puts in a performance that might just be his career best. His effortless comic timing, natural delivery of extremely hilarious and often extremely potent material, are remarkable, especially when you consider the format in which the show has been shot.
Catherine O’Hara as Patty Leigh, the former studio head and Matt's mentor, has perhaps lined up Emmy nominations with her performance. It is so heartening to see someone who has unfairly been remembered by most as Kevin's mom from Home Alone, finally getting her dues and the sort of characters that she can really sink her teeth into.
Ike Barinholtz as Sal Saperstein is brilliant. The way Ike portrays Sal's journey, from being disappointed and envious that Matt got the much-coveted job to being a suck up, to being a confidante, to being Matt's most trustworthy reality check is beautiful. Also, I am still waiting to find out if there is any character that Kathryn Hahn cannot transform herself into.
The Studio is fun, entertaining, deep and deconstructs the magic of cinema. More accurately, it depicts why the magic has gone missing from our cinema in recent years. Yes, it does cater a tad bit more to those of us who have grown up on and found ourselves on the sets of films or through the magic of the silver screen but it is still extremely engaging even if you miss the in-jokes, the more tongue-in-cheek humour or the subtle and not-so-subtle nods at the real-life legends and stalwarts we have loved and admired.
