1x01 The Chosen One!

One of the great legacies of the 'golden age of television' has undoubtedly been the rise of auteur-driven projects. Maniac, while ostensibly a remake of a Norwegian series, is the sort of thing that on paper benefits from a singular vision throughout. Cary Fukunaga has previous experience, of course, and being given free rein by Netflix to do what he wants with the concept is an exciting prospect. The concept of the show is an intriguing one, and it's certainly novel to find ourselves immersed in this strange alternate reality. It's a clunkier, analogue version of our own world, where the sort of scenario where we watch an ad to read an article extends to just about anything and the technology hasn't moved on since the mid 1990s. It makes for a compelling setting and it's a pleasure to look out for all of the detail that's obviously been lovingly crafted. It's this world that we find Owen and Annie, two very lost souls.

Owen comes from great wealth, but has chosen to shun the easy life his brothers have taken working for the family company. Instead he lives a precarious and meagre existence, avoiding taking his medication and seeing Grimsson, a man almost identical to his brother Jed, who informs him that he's been chosen to save the world. His handler, he is told, is Annie, who weaves a chaotic path through life. Much of the episode focuses on the circumstances bringing them together, and the episode does suffer for it: the pacing feels off, and despite Owen getting the lion's share of screen-time, he still comes across as a creep as he tries to get close to Annie. There's a strange sense that despite what we've seen, it's not entirely clear what's going on beyond the basic scenario of both characters enlisting in an experimental drug trial. The tendency for Netflix shows to feel like long films chopped up into arbitrary chunks means the episode just... ends. I want to watch more, and to spend more time in this world with these characters, but it feels clumsy.

Hill does well with what he's given. Socially awkward and painfully out of place among his boorish family, he cuts a decent everyman. As I've mentioned, the sense of empathy created isn't enough to round the rough edges off his paranoid behaviour towards Annie, but otherwise we share in his bewilderment as the ground shakes and words and events twist themselves out of proportion. Annie seems the more intriguing of the two, however—we know nearly nothing about her circumstances, and I'm hoping that further episodes will develop her character in the same way that this episode attempted to develop Owen's. The rest of the episode—the pending trial involving Owen's brother and an allegation of sexual assault, the team behind the drug trial, the regular 'furloughs' that result in Owen being made redundant—are touched upon only briefly. There's enough here to guarantee that I'll continue watching, but it's an uneven start.

Selecting a television show to watch can be a bewildering process these days: nestled within each streaming service are thousands of options, often with high production values but varying wildly in quality. With the rate Netflix produce shows, it can be difficult to even keep up with what's there let alone how good it is. Pressed for time, we can't sit and read the synopses for everything in front of us and so are forced to rely on word-of-mouth or existing knowledge of actors, writers or directors we like. Maniac comes with a high pedigree: two big name stars, Cary Fukunaga directing, written in part by Patrick Somerville. It boasts an immediately arresting aesthetic, a melding of eighties analogue with the impersonal, ad-obsessed online culture we're gradually sinking into as a society. The show is gorgeous, from its opening to the title design, and it's tempting to try to unpick everything in this world; this first episode proceeds at a breakneck pace and doesn't bother to explain many of the aspects of the society our characters live in. Personally I prefer to let it wash over me rather than try to understand every tiny detail—it feels more authentic that way.

The episode focuses largely on Jonah Hill's Owen, a melancholic and depressed young man who also happens to be the fifth child of the wealthy Milgram family. Owen has chosen to tread his own path in life, not accepting a job at his father's company and appearing ill-at-ease with his siblings. Hill brings a wonderful, downtrodden quality to Owen and it's easy to sympathise with him; this does get slightly more difficult towards the end of the episode, when his behaviour towards Annie, Emma Stone's character, borders on harassment. We have context, though—Owen appears to suffer from schizophrenia and often sees a man who looks identical to his brother Jed who tells him that he has been selected to save the world. Owen plans on providing a false alibi to the real Jed to save his reputation in an upcoming criminal trial, prompting his father to try to bring him back into the family fold. Rejecting this, he instead chooses to take up a pharmaceutical trial, prompted in part by repeatedly seeing Annie in adverts and billboards around the city.

We don't see as much of Annie in this episode other than getting the sense that she's something of a loose cannon, angry and just rattling through life. She enrols in the trial for her own reasons that I'm expecting will be elucidated in the next episode, and it'll be interesting seeing how her dynamic with Owen grows, especially given the baffling reaction to his delusion towards the end of the episode. I should mention the score, too, which is excellent—supporting and complementing the on-screen action perfectly. It's a solid if not spectacular start to what will hopefully be, if nothing else, an interesting miniseries.