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'This Way Up' Deserves A Spot On Your Crowded Viewing List

Linda Holmes

Aisling Bea stars as Aine in This Way Up , a new series available on Hulu. Channel 4/Hulu hide caption

Aisling Bea stars as Aine in This Way Up , a new series available on Hulu.

This Way Up , which premieres on Hulu on August 21, is a stellar example of one of the challenges in what we've come to know as "peak TV": It doesn't have a star who's famous in the United States, it doesn't have a particularly high concept, and at first glance, there are other shows superficially similar to it. But it's very good, and it's warm and clever, and it will — or would — precisely hit the spot for a lot of people, if only they can find it.

This Way Up was created by Aisling Bea, an Irish actress and comedian. She plays Aine, a woman we first meet when she's on her way out of a rehab facility after what's gently referred to as a "nervous breakdown." The sister who picks her up, Shona, is played by Catastrophe 's Sharon Horgan. From rehab, Aine returns to her life in London teaching English as a second language, and she picks up a side gig teaching a French kid who's just recently come to live with a father he barely knows. The protective Shona hovers while her boyfriend Vish (Aasif Mandvi, who's terrific in a kind of role he's rarely gotten to play) tries to persuade her to let Aine take care of herself. Meanwhile, Aine's ex, Freddie (Chris Geere of You're The Worst ), lingers around the edges of her life in the way that always seems like it will end in tears.

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There are a lot of similarities, some superficial and some less so, between This Way Up and the celebrated Fleabag , Phoebe Waller-Bridge's series about a woman trying not to think about her traumas. They're both very funny, charmingly economical stories about single women who are reflexively funny when they're in pain, and whose family relationships are every bit as important and fraught as their dating lives. But Aine is a very, very different woman from Fleabag. Where Fleabag confides in the viewer while also seeming somehow remote — right down to not even having a name — Aine is a much more open, more transparently vulnerable person. She's been to rehab, she's trying to get well, and she lacks Fleabag's stubborn dismissal of other people's efforts to be close to her. The precise nature of Aine's pain isn't really specified, but it doesn't play like a mystery, as if you're trying to discover a single cause. But This Way Up does fit, in a heartening way, into a stretch of offbeat shows that star and showcase the women who built them. Not just Fleabag , but also Insecure and Chewing Gum and The Mindy Project and Russian Doll .

As is sometimes — but not always — the case in shows where funny people create their own vehicles, Bea has a fine knack for writing for herself. Perhaps it's not surprising that she delivers her own dialogue with a delightful sense of timing and tone. But in the scenes that feature Aine and her French student's father, a quiet man named Richard played by Tobias Menzies (the meanie of Outlander !), she is funny in one of the hardest ways you can be funny on television without becoming tiresome, which is as someone who jokes compulsively whether or not they're getting anything in return. Wisely, Aine's tendency to make jokes is a tic she knows she has and talks about having, both with Richard and with her boss (Ekow Quartey). So you're not asked to believe everyone simply finds it endlessly charming that she talks like a professional comedian.

There is a special charm in the scenes featuring Bea and Horgan, who beautifully capture a particular kind of intimacy between sisters: easy companionship, bottomless forgiveness, barely held tongues, long-buried frustrations, profound trust. They're so funny just being together, particularly in unguarded moments like a long scene in which they lie on their backs with sheet masks on, that the moments in which the tension twists between them are doubly significant.

Bea knows how to take a moment and flip it: a fun night out that turns lonely, a warm conversation that turns acidic, a place of safety that becomes unwelcoming. But she's not given to wallowing: Aine really is resilient and enormously likable, despite her struggles. The six episodes of the series can be polished off in an afternoon or an evening, and they are well worth your time, even in such a crowded landscape.

‘This Way Up’ Will (Almost) Fill the ‘Fleabag’-Sized Hole in Your Heart

By Alan Sepinwall

Alan Sepinwall

Is it doing Hulu ‘s new This Way Up a favor or a disservice to compare it to Fleabag ?

The parallels are unavoidable. Both are British dramedies with a female creator/star. Both are about women with significant emotional problems, who tell inappropriate jokes as a defense mechanism when they’re feeling vulnerable (which is always), who make self-destructive choices when it comes to sex, and whose most important relationship is with their more successful and responsible older sister. There’s no Hot Priest here (though co-star Tobias Menzies could certainly play a Hot Priest if asked to), no guinea pigs, and no breaking of the fourth wall, but the superficial resemblance between the two shows is unavoidable. Even if I didn’t want to, it would be hard to write about This Way Up and its auteur, Aisling Bea, without invoking Fleabag and/or Phoebe Waller-Bridge at some point.

Bea plays Aine, a quick-witted Irish woman who lives in England and teaches English to a group of friendly immigrants. (Aine likes to point out that she’s an immigrant herself, but the show is keenly aware that her transition to this country was much easier than it’s been for her students.) Her sister Shona (Sharon Horgan from Catastrophe ) is a successful executive in a long-term relationship with Vish (Aasif Mandvi), and works alongside Aine’s toxic ex-boyfriend Freddie ( You’re the Worst ‘s Chris Geere). The sisters complete each other’s thoughts and function on a shared wavelength that the rest of the world isn’t privy to — in one episode, they hilariously duet on “Zombie” by The Cranberries while Vish and his family watch in polite befuddlement. Their bond is so tight that Aine often feels adrift and afraid whenever Shona’s busy with her own rich and full life.

But Shona has reason to feel afraid when she’s away from Aine, too. As the series opens, she’s checking Aine out of a mental health facility after her little sister recently suffered what’s described as “a teeny little nervous breakdown.”

The six-episode season is less interested in exploring the reasons for Aine’s breakdown than her attempt to rebuild her life after it. She teaches her class, has fumbling encounters with various men, and befriends Richard (Menzies), the coolly repressed father of a French boy, Etienne (Grover), she tutors on the side.

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She fires off off-kilter punchlines in every setting, to varying effect, with Richard utterly impervious to the basic concept of humor, let alone Aine’s flavor of it. “I mean, I’m just jokes, Richard,” she cracks, after another gag has flown right over his head. Eventually, we meet Aine and Shona’s mother Eileen (Sorcha Cusack), a former TV personality from back home (her gimmick is that she reported the weather while wearing a new hat every day), and it becomes clear where the siblings’ sense of humor — and Aine’s particular strain of loneliness — came from in the first place.

Bea is never less than charming. And even though this is clearly a vehicle for her, she makes sure to showcase Horgan (a bit softer and saner than she was on Catastrophe , which this show also resembles in its blend of sincerity and awkward laughs), Menzies, and the rest of the cast throughout. It’s a smart, sweet, sad, winning little show, and the season goes down easily in one burst. (Hulu is smartly releasing the whole thing on August 21st.)

Still, it’s hard to watch without thinking of it as an off-brand Fleabag . Now, Waller-Bridge didn’t invent the particular themes the two shows share, nor the blend of self-deprecating comedy and aching tragedy. But the two shows overlap in many specific ways, and This Way Up can’t help suffering in comparison, on both the comic and the dramatic ends. Its humor is gentler, if quite clever. (“David, pretend to have your mind blown,” Aine tells a boring date she intends to kiss before exiting.) And it wears its heart on its sleeve, though the emotions never feel quite as painful.

But there’s also this: Fleabag has not only turned out to be the show of 2019, but a very specific one, with only 12 episodes total between its two seasons. So if you fell in love with it, it left a uniquely-shaped hole in your heart that few other shows are built to fill. This Way Up just happens to be one of them. It won’t replace the feeling the other show gave you, but it’ll approximate it more than enough for three hours.

And if you’ve never seen or heard of Fleabag ? Then This Way Up is still another strong addition to a TV year that’s been jam-packed with smart, emotionally complex comedies. (But also: You should watch Fleabag .)

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This Way Up Is the Smartest Feel-Good Show You’re Not Yet Watching

By Chloe Schama

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If you are still coming to terms with the end of Fleabag , or you wish that Catastrophe continued for just a few more seasons, or you’re the kind of person who worships at the altar of Pamela Adlon , allow me to introduce you to Aisling Bea . A little-known Irish actor and comedian (at least on these shores), Bea is the star of the warm and witty comedy This Way Up , the second season of which premiered on Hulu yesterday. 

The show, which Bea wrote and stars in, follows two sisters living in London: Aine (Bea), the one who can’t quite get her life together and sporadically suffers from an unlabeled malaise that has landed her in some kind of rehab facility at the beginning of season one; and Shona (Sharon Horgan, the cocreator of Catastrophe, incidentally but not surprisingly), the put-together-seeming older sister whose job in finance, blunt lob , and wardrobe of sensible slacks don’t fully obscure the complications in her own head. Aine is a foil to her professional sister, but she is also her greatest defender.

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The two sisters are deeply intertwined—as one character puts it, they are like the poster children for “Codependents Anonymous.” (“Well, then it wouldn’t be anonymous,” Shona replies.) They are so invested in each other that Shona keeps tabs on Aine’s whereabouts via the GPS coordinates of her phone and when Aine senses that Shona’s long-term boyfriend might be on the brink of proposing, she’s miffed that he didn’t ask her permission first.

While this Big Sister–style mutual surveillance might seem a little claustrophobic, it’s their intimacy, and the frothy banter it generates, that gives this show its warm and magnetic character. Watching This Way Up is like eavesdropping on a happy, zany family; Bea and Hogan talk at such a rapid clip (and with such dense—to my American ear—Irish accents) that I sometimes had to rewind in order to catch the jokes. (Is this what they call craic ? Bea and Horgan are first-rate actors, but they genuinely seem to be cracking each other up.) The show is packed with the kind of verbal acuity beloved of Fleabag fans but buoyed by an almost slapstick physical humor that makes it its own cheerful affair. Bea’s Aine is self-deprecating, unpretentious, quick with an impersonation but rarely at anyone’s expense, opening herself up to everyone from the ESL students she teaches to the doddering, slightly racist old-age pensioner who lives in her apartment building.  In an interview with The Guardian , Bea shared advice that Horgan had given her: “Waiting around for great female parts doesn’t work. So you have to write them.”

Nominally, the tension of This Way Up comes from romance. Shona spends most of the first season secretly entangled with her (female) business partner, Charlotte (Indira Varma), while her doting and ignorant boyfriend, Vish ( Aasif Mandvi ), patiently tamps down her anxieties with toaster waffles and other attentions. He’s the kind of guy who has internalized a realistic expectation of how long it will take her to leave the house and doesn’t complain about it. Aine, meanwhile, is engaged in a gentle flirtation with a student’s father (a character named Richard, played by a wonderfully muted Tobais Menzies ). At the start of season two, the extent of Shona’s affair with Charlotte emerges; at the same time, she’s planning her wedding to Vish and has moved into his sleekly modern house. Aine and Richard have become an item, though they’re generally keeping it under wraps.

While these plotlines keep the show trotting forward, they are not what the show is ultimately about. Forgive another Fleabag comparison, but This Way Up offers something of a reflection of that show, in which the barbed and treacherous landscape between Fleabag and her sister, Claire, is ultimately revealed to be the only place in which either of them feels grounded. “The only person I’d run through an airport for is you,” Claire tells her —not a man, as Fleabag had suggested. There are truly only a few people for whom you’d make yourself ridiculous and vulnerable at the same time, trusting that ultimately you wouldn’t suffer for it. This Way Up offers a more gentlehearted vision of that dynamic: Aine and Shona start from loyalty, dedication, and affection and together navigate their way through the sometimes very jarring bumps that interfere along the way. In This Way Up , love and connection are the default, even in contexts outside of relationships: “I know you’re not supposed to say this,” admits Aine at one point to Richard, “but I really love my job. I love being a teacher.”  

This offers no less a compelling or witty picture of what a sisterly bond can be, nor does it turn the show into a treacly lovefest. There’s a melancholia lurking at the show’s edges, as it tests the limits of those bonds and asks what happens when you toss your heart into the world and it isn’t quite caught and cared for in the way you’d hoped it would be. But then again, why not love your job, your sister, your tutee, and your hapless neighbor and just hope for the best? As This Way Up suggests, it could just work out.  

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This Way Up Is an Amiable But Aimless Exploration of Recovery

When we first meet This Way Up ’s Aine (played by series creator and writer Aisling Bea), she’s in the slippery liminal state of early recovery, just getting out of a rehab facility she was admitted to after what she’s referring to as a nervous breakdown. But it’s evident that the waters are more troubled than Aine’s quirky charms would suggest, as her older sister, Shona (Sharon Horgan), asks one of the receptionists at the facility, “Is she fixed?” Aine stumbles through her recovery searching for meaning and answers in everyone but herself — failed hookups, falling back in with an ex, the older immigrants whom she teaches English, her sister. At one point, she goes to a psychic she finds off the street, who tells her, “You’ve got a fire in you. You can use that to heat yourself up or you can use that to burn yourself and everyone else around you down.” But Aine is less wildly destructive than distinctly lost — much like the show itself, which drifts between scenarios with amiable charm but seems averse to dealing with the darker, dramatic aspects of Aine’s story.

This Way Up has its pleasures, namely its gently vulgar humor and the codependent, richly observed dynamic between Aine and Shona. But the British comedy-drama — a Channel 4 production that dropped Stateside on Hulu this week — feels listless as it spends most of its six episodes either avoiding or only exploring on the surface level the heart of the matter: What are the influences in Aine’s life that brought her so low? Why is she so uncomfortable with being healthy? Unfortunately, the show’s humor proves to be more realized than its dramatic dimensions.

As Aine stumbles through life just barely getting by — whether in her work tutoring the French son of Richard (Tobias Menzies), with whom she develops a somewhat flirtatious rapport, or in her reaction to losing her sister’s attention to a new friend — it becomes evident that she uses humor as a defense mechanism. Before anything can cut too deeply she diffuses tension with a vulgar joke or a baby voice that highlights just how childlike and immature she can be, in part because she never had to fully grow up with Shona around. The dynamic between Shona and Aine cuts deeply thanks to the tender chemistry between the actors, evident in moments like them singing “Zombie” by the Cranberries together, or fighting over Aine’s latest mistake in a way that shows they’ll forgive each other soon enough. This element of the series contains some intriguing dramatic threads regarding the codependency of their relationship, which Shona’s longtime partner, Vish (Aasif Mandvi), often brings into the light with loving frustration, and which become particularly evident when Shona gains a work friend, Charlotte (Indira Varma), whom she spends an increasing amount of time with.

But the series undercuts its dramatic potential by talking around what really brought Aine to the hospital. Shona is unable to voice it, but that she obsessively tracks Aine’s location on her phone speaks to the seriousness of the matter. This Way Up holds off on addressing the truth, treating it like a revelation rather than threading it into our understanding of the characters and their lives. This is most clear in Aine’s estrangement from her mother (Sorcha Cusack), which for the first few episodes of the series is in the foreground of her conversations with Shona. It’s evident something traumatic and hurtful happened, causing Aine to put distance between them. But in episode four, when their mother joins them for a birthday celebration at Vish’s family’s home and she and Aine bicker, the animosity doesn’t feel as fiery as one would expect. And when they forgive each other at the very end of the episode, it happens so quickly after her mother reveals her own struggle with postpartum depression that we don’t have enough time to really understand what this means for either woman, or how this will affect Aine going forward. It’s brushed aside almost as an afterthought.

It’s only in the final episode that Shona and Aine have a conversation that broaches the truth instead of just hinting at it. Just as This Way Up finally dips its toe into the more complex territory it’s teased all season — Aine confronting what led her to be in rehab — the show ends, leaving half-formed the thorny emotional and personal dynamics that power the story.

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‘This Way Up’ Review: Hulu’s British Comedy Import Is a Lovely Series About Trusting Connections

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There’s a great balancing act going on throughout “ This Way Up .” The first season of the comedy series, originally broadcast on Channel 4 and now available in its entirety on Hulu , is the latest in a growing number of shows that make the most of their small windows into the lives of their characters by showing that life doesn’t fit neatly into categories.

Aisling Bea stars as Aine, an outwardly cheery ESL teacher and tutor doing her best to move past her recent time spent at a London-area rehab center. Juggling her time spent with her adult students, her sister Shona (Sharon Horgan), and her various frustrated attempts at finding romantic connection, Aine handles each successive experience with a deflective, joking outlook.

Written by Bea, “This Way Up” mirrors Aine’s breezy approach. What puts this series up with some of the other top British comedy exports in recent years is the way that spirit runs through Aine’s relationships, even if her actions may seem careless or ill-advised. This isn’t merely a vehicle for Bea to deliver self-effacing one-liners, though those are often episode highlights when they pop up (one involving the game “Mario Party” is one of the clearest, strongest bits of joke-as-characterization in the entire season). There’s an overriding sense of warmth and empathy that’s guiding “This Way Up,” even if some characters struggle to grasp those things for themselves.

The individuals surrounding Aine each have a subtle strength to them, even with limited time in her orbit. It’s the kind of sturdy foundation that’s built to be sustainable, rather than fueling momentary quirks for quips’ sake. Shona’s boyfriend Vish (Aasif Mandvi), the unusually reserved Richard (Tobias Menzies), and Aine and Shona’s mother Eileen (Sorcha Cusack) each get the chance to establish themselves as a recognizable force in Aine’s story. Part of the joy of “This Way Up” is tracking the tiny ways each of those interactions change as Aine becomes more confident in expressing her own needs and her lingering feelings of unease.

“This Way Up” makes the wise choice to treat its six-episode season as a reason to luxuriate in smaller moments rather than speed through them for the sake of shoehorning in extra plot developments. An impromptu kitchen dance party, an ill-fated family karaoke choice, and plenty of other moments that don’t involve music deliver just as much information about who these people are than any extensive dive into their collective backstory.

Bea and Horgan make a perfect sisterly match, able to convey decades worth of care and complication when talking about the most ordinary subjects. Director Alex Winckler finds some interesting ways to show the literal space that each of them take up in each other’s lives, at one point following the pair of them through Shona’s place.

Aine’s evolving relationship to her own mental health is also a present force in the show, but “This Way Up” affords her the chance to try to have some power over it. Still, there’s a sequence in the first episode that lets expectation and reality converge in one surprising way. Much of Aine’s ongoing struggles aren’t as explicitly named, but there’s a simple way that “This Way Up” shows how easy it can be to try to find an insufficient replacement for the things that might be missing from your life.

There’s something fitting about the way that “This Way Up” is an arc without a fixed end. Just as Aine’s main goal is to get through each successive day, the show around her is content with following her wherever those challenges may lead. These half-dozen episodes fly by quickly, flowing together by virtue of how much they focus on what we can (and should) share with each other. It’s enough to make you want to see how everyone finds out the answer.

“This Way Up” is now available to stream on Hulu.

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This Way Up series two review – TV so good it’s indistinguishable from magic

Co-starring Sharon Horgan, Aisling Bea’s delightful, devastating comedy about mental health and sisterhood remains the perfect showcase for the pair’s prodigious talents

W e first met Aisling Bea’s Aine two years ago , as she was being signed out of the rehab facility, where she had been staying after “a teeny little nervous breakdown” – later revealed to have included a suicide attempt. We watched, alternately heart-in-mouth or laughing convulsively, as a job teaching English to foreign language students (“Get those worksheets in by Monday or I will Brexit the lot of you”), a fledgling relationship with Richard (Tobias Menzies) – the emotionally repressed father of Etienne, a private student who had recently lost his mother – and the brutal, unconditional love of her sister Shona (Sharon Horgan) helped to put her back together and find a comfortable enough place in the world again.

This Way Up (Channel 4) was up there with Fleabag as one of the best comedy-dramas of 2019. So funny, so tender, so deftly and seemingly effortlessly scripted (by Bea) and just as deftly and seemingly effortlessly played by everyone that you could watch and rewatch the six half-hour episodes and find something new to marvel at each time.

Now the second series is here and looks likely to repeat the triumph. This time our heroine is in a relatively good place – metaphorically speaking. She and Shona open proceedings in a sauna “like a confession booth”, talking over the possibility of Shona getting a fringe (“Oh my God,” says her concerned sister. “Are you OK? Are you happy?”) and Shona’s move in with fiance Vish (Aasif Mandvi, even though his home is so far away from her little sister’s. “It’s 20 minutes overground,” Shona says. “Twenty minutes!” says Aine. “That’ll take me ages!” Shona holds firm. There are moments, she explains, with elder wisdom, when you have to show in life whether you’re in or whether you’re out. “And I’m out. In!” Aine still does not know about her sister’s affair with her colleague Charlotte (Indira Varma) after she – eventually – accepted Vish’s proposal.

Bea and Horgan’s chemistry is as glorious as ever. They overlap and underlap perfectly, giving expansive but controlled performances that never take from each other. It is wonderful – indeed it feels almost a privilege – to watch, from their bickering moments to being pure idiots together (rolling around on Vish’s underfloor heating while he watches in bemusement – “It’s like you’ve never been warm before”) and all points in between. As they did in the first series, serious moments slide in from nowhere. In the middle of a discussion of the merits of going on Tinder versus sleeping with your boss (the latter is in the offing), a suddenly exasperated Shona says, “Sometimes you talk like you’re the only one who’s ever – sad. It’s annoying.” Is she all right, asks Aine, already on the alert after the fringe chat. “Wha’?” says Shona, scrambling away from the deep emotional waters at full Irish Catholic speed (we can’t swim). “I’m fine! Shut up!”

Once Etienne has headed off to France, Richard and Aine look forward to their first proper date. “I’m cooking. So. Get excited.” Things are going well at work – there are even plans to set up an online school, with Aine as a founding member – and happiness seems to beckon.

Alas, what goes up must come down and, well, it’s Richard’s member. The first time doesn’t work (for him – and, despite Aine’s polite protestations, he goes on to make it work for her. “No, no, honestly you don’t have to – just feel a bit guilty because – yes – Jesus Christ, fucking hell …!”) nor the second (“Next time!” she says. “Yes we can!”) and it’s all so funny and humane and clever and such a perfect showcase for Bea’s gift for writing and playing allusive half-sentences around moments of potential devastation and hilarity that you almost hope he doesn’t manage it next time either.

The best thing of all about This Way Up is that we don’t know what is going to happen next. Bea’s is such a nuanced, delicate portrait of mental health that Aine is neither a one-note self-sabotager, or manic, or depressive (nor is she any of the other comedy or drama female staples, such as the ditsy damsel or flinty bitch with a heart of gold and/or secret sorrow). She is a real person and, as such, she could go anywhere or do anything depending on when and if her circumstances change. She will react within credible parameters, but you won’t know quite how until she does, any more than you do with anyone you have ever met in real life. The same is true of Shona and Richard, Charlotte and the rest of them. Isn’t that incredible? Isn’t that just, isn’t that almost indistinguishable from, magic?

• Sharon Horgan
• Aisling Bea

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‘this way up’: tv review.

Hulu's new acquisition, 'This Way Up,' from creator-star Aisling Bea, isn't quite on the 'Fleabag'/'Catastrophe' level, but it might scratch a similar British comic itch.

By Daniel Fienberg

Daniel Fienberg

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No matter how Brexit ends up shaking out, TV critics can only pray that it has no impact on Great Britain’s key natural creative resource: six-episode melancholic comedies from star-writers, who, despite relative inexperience as creators, have immediate proficiency with complicated tone and take full advantage of the remarkable domestic talent pool.

Whatever unavoidable sadness one might feel at losing Catastrophe after four seasons and Fleabag after two seasons can be slightly allayed by knowing that the pipeline remains open for shows that scratch a comparable itch, all seemingly lined up and ready to debut, starting Wednesday with Hulu ‘s This Way Up , a Channel 4 acquisition.

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Air date: Aug 21, 2019

This Way Up was created by Aisling Bea, whose myriad acting credits include Hard Sun , a drama that I promise premiered last year and is available on Hulu. Bea plays Aine, who begins the series being released from some sort of facility. The cause of her stay seems officially to have been a nervous breakdown, but based on sister Shona’s (Sharon Horgan) level of concern, it was something more involved than that.

Four months later, Aine’s life is back to something resembling normal. She’s teaching English, using Keeping Up With the Kardashians as a key text, to a class of eager immigrants. She’s also taken up a freelance gig working for generally stern (or possibly shellshocked) Richard (Tobias Menzies), who has only just discovered that he has a French son (Dorian Grover’s Etienne), whose English is spotty at best. Since her program told her to avoid intimacy for a year, Aine is spending a lot of time with Shona and her boyfriend Vish (Aasif Mandvi), as Shona is pouring her energy into a new project supporting women in finance with the alluring Charlotte (Indira Varma).

That’s about all there is to This Way Up , which I don’t mean as an insult. It’s a very low-incident series. There’s some workplace comedy with Aine’s class, there’s an open question as to whether we’re supposed to see Richard and Aine as a potential couple, we’re definitely supposed to worry about the romantic threat posed by Aine’s ex Freddie (Chris Geere) and I guess we’re supposed to be curious about what’s holding back Shona’s commitment to Vish. More than anything, we’re supposed to watch Aine with some trepidation, figuring out which of her “up” moments have manic shadings and what actually happened to her (or what she did) that led to her breakdown, but this isn’t a Fleabag situation where there’s a big mystery or surprise we’re supposed to be unraveling.

The backdrop of Aine’s class lets This Way Up comment a little on the status of immigrants in post-Brexit England, underlined by Aine and Shona’s own Irishness and the way Vish and Charlotte handle or avoid their otherness. It’s not a relentless subtext and it’s rolled into the handling of Aine’s emotional problems without driving the narrative. It’s all just people trying to fit in and be or seem to be happy no matter how hard that is.

Episodic plots don’t get much bigger than a day trip to the countryside or a low-urgency trip to the emergency room, so the show really is at its best when it’s focused on the interactions and relationships between the characters. That means that the first couple episodes stumble around a little introducing us to people and then the second half of the season is really locked in. Since episodes aren’t more than 23 minutes apiece and they’ll be presented as a Hulu binge, that’s no impediment at all. Directed by Alex Winckler, episodes move fast, regardless of whether you care appreciably about what’s happening.

It’s enough to just like Aine and to worry about her predicament, which comes easily with Bea’s affectionate and eager-to-please performance. I don’t remember the last time I saw a character in a comedy this clearly defined as being not funny in such a realistic way. That’s not “not funny” as in “serious.” Aine desperately wants to be funny, because she knows that getting people to laugh at or with her will make them think she’s OK, and it just happens that her punchlines fall frequently and conspicuously flat. But she keeps trying, which should generate empathy from all but the most effortlessly hilarious of viewers.

It sells Aine’s potential relationship with Richard, because he’s too stern and wooden to even get her jokes, but her effort makes him try and there’s some spark in that. I’ve never cared for Menzies when he’s cast as being handsome and therefore, by inference, dashing. I think he’s great, however, when he’s cast as being fundamentally sour despite his handsomeness. Through the first season, I don’t think This Way Up has gotten around to explaining or justifying Richard’s personality, nor does it need to. He’s just uncomfortable, but he’s willing to try to find things funny when he’s around Aine, even if he doesn’t.

Aine’s comic misfiring — not an anxious or borderline offensive thing like with a Michael Scott/David Brent type — also sells Aine’s relationship with Shona, because together they’re funny, often in that easily identifiable way in which siblings can amuse and be amusing together, even if they perplex everybody around them. This is a less lacerating character for Horgan, executive producing as well, than the parts she tends to write for herself or others and her protectiveness for her sister makes her instantly likable, if flawed in less immediately visible ways. Sorcha Cusack makes a fine one-episode guest appearance as their Irish TV personality mother, a woman who presumably played no small role in shaping and warping her daughters’ sensibilities.

The Aine-Shona relationship so dominates the series that it’s hard for a lot of the supporting characters not to feel thin. Mandvi’s Vish is nice and occasionally droll, but never really all that funny. Geere’s Freddie is a slightly amusing cad, though fans of You’re the Worst will find him fairly wasted. As much as I love how compact these six-episode British seasons can be, it’d be hard to dispute that a 10- or 13-episode season might have given more development room for Aine’s students — Pik Sen Lim and Todor Jordanov get a laugh or two — or her roommates or co-workers. The pieces are here for This Way Up to expand its ensemble and its emotional palette in a second season.

And if This Way Up doesn’t quite fill that Fleabag / Catastrophe -shaped hole in your heart, maybe Showtime’s Back to Life , premiering in October, will do the job. Shows like these are apparently a renewal resource across the pond.

Cast: Aisling Bea, Sharon Horgan, Aasif Mandvi, Indira Varma, Dorian Grover, Tobias Menzies Creator: Aisling Bea Premieres: Wednesday (Hulu)

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‘This Way Up’ Is The ‘Fleabag’ Meets ‘New Girl’ Series You Love Already

Where to Stream:

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While few shows can compete with the brilliance that is Fleabag Season 2, This Way Up , streaming on Hulu beginning on Wednesday, has emerged as a strong companion series. From creator and star, Irish comedian and actress Aisling Bea, the six-episode mostly-comedy series follows her character Aine, a woman who’s adjusting back to life after spending some time away at a “spa” after a nervous breakdown.

Ultimately, This Way Up is about the joys, and the many non-joys, of what it means to be an adult woman. Like New Girl ‘s Jessica Day (Zooey Deschanel) Aine is a teacher and a tutor and the kind of woman who is likely to be described as “quirky” though she would probably loathe it — oh, and don’t even utter the word “adorkable”, though Aine is a bit more grown-up than Jess was during that series’ run.

The Fleabag comparisons are inevitable for any female-led half-hour comedy series these days (also see Gameface on Hulu — Season 2 arrives on August 30!), but it’s a compliment of course, as This Way Up expertly blends the serious with the silly, refusing to ignore Aine’s current fragile mental state while also showcasing her caring and comedic side with those she’s closest to. She’s navigating complicated relationships with her family members, coworkers, friends, roommates, and students to various results with nearly guaranteed cringes and chuckles for those watching.

Bea is flanked by an excellent supporting cast, including our dream sibling, Catastrophe ‘s Sharon Horgan as her sister Shona, and Shona’s boyfriend Vish played By Aasif Mandvi. If you’ve never had a crush on Tobias Menzies, that’s about to change here, and You’re The Worst ‘s Chris Geere is unable to hide his inherent charm as Aine’s ex-boyfriend.

This Way Up remains irresistible and not just because it’s an easy and enjoyable binge-watch. Bea’s performance is dynamic, keeping her character relatable and worth rooting for throughout, as her heart’s certainly in the right place, even if her execution isn’t. The series has a super dope soundtrack that will have your head bobbing along to match the uncontrollable smile that is sure to be plastered on your face as you watch. Describing a show as having “a lot of heart” can mean a lot of things, but it won’t take more than one episode of this series for you to realize, ah, yep, this one’s got a lot of heart.

This Way Up premieres on Hulu Wednesday, August 21.

Where to stream This Way Up

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Sharks can't eat people fast enough in terrible thriller.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

In small ways, the movie is about finding courage

Ava is a woman who's been protected by her father

The characters aren't deep, but they're a fairly d

Shark attacks, with legs and other limbs chomped o

Kissing. Crude sex-related dialogue.

Strong, frequent language includes "f--k," "s--t,"

Mentions of Walmart and Whole Foods.

Reference to "smoking weed in Walmart." During a t

Parents need to know that No Way Up is a thriller about a group of people who miraculously remain alive at the bottom of the ocean after a plane crash and must get back to the surface while avoiding being eaten by sharks. Violence includes shark attacks: Limbs get bitten off, and there are gory wounds and…

Positive Messages

In small ways, the movie is about finding courage and compassion in an emergency situation. In some situations, sacrifices are made so that others can survive. Mostly, though, the movie is about shark attacks.

Positive Role Models

Ava is a woman who's been protected by her father and is finally in a situation in which she (reluctantly) becomes a leader in her own right. But it's also a situation in which there aren't many choices to be made.

Diverse Representations

The characters aren't deep, but they're a fairly diverse group. Ava (New Zealand actor Sophie McIntosh) and Jed (German Ghanaian actor Jeremias Amoore) are Black. Flight attendant Danilo is gay and from Guadalajara; he's played by Manuel Pacific, who was born in Colombia and is part Italian. Mardy was a nurse in wartime and is able to spring into action to provide assistance. Young Rosa is smart and perceptive, offering a solution to help evade the shark. The last surviving White male, Kyle, is homophobic; he says insensitive and cruel things about Danilo's gayness, but the movie doesn't condone his behavior and he eventually takes it back. As shown on a billboard, the governor is Black. A character refers to women as "chicks."

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Shark attacks, with legs and other limbs chomped off and lots of blood and gore. Shark tail smacks character in face. Severed leg floating in water. Several characters killed. In flashback/nightmare, a person drowns. Birds fly into a plane engine; the engine goes up in flames. Side of a plane ripped off; passengers are sucked out, screaming. Plane crashes into the ocean. Underwater corpses. Person stabbed by shrapnel. Gory broken arm; a nurse sets the arm, and there's screaming. Dialogue about shark eating dead bodies. Jump scares.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong, frequent language includes "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," "motherf----r," "pissed," "shut up," "screwed," "pee." Exclamatory use of "oh my God" and "Jesus Christ."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Reference to "smoking weed in Walmart." During a tense moment, a character cracks open a can and drinks; it could be beer.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that No Way Up is a thriller about a group of people who miraculously remain alive at the bottom of the ocean after a plane crash and must get back to the surface while avoiding being eaten by sharks. Violence includes shark attacks: Limbs get bitten off, and there are gory wounds and injuries with lots of blood. Expect to see severed limbs, deaths, drowning, corpses, and a scary plane-crash sequence in which characters are sucked out into the air, screaming. Characters kiss, and there's brief, crude innuendo, as well as some homophobic remarks (not condoned by the movie). Strong, frequent language includes uses of "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," "motherf----r," "oh my God," "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation), "pissed," etc. There's a mention of being caught smoking pot, and a character gulps down a canned beverage that could be beer. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In NO WAY UP, several vacationers prepare for a fun trip to Cabo San Lucas. The daughter of the governor, Ava (Sophie McIntosh), boards the plane with her boyfriend, Jed ( Jeremias Amoore ), and Jed's best friend, Kyle (Will Attenborough). Under orders from the governor, Ava's hyper-alert bodyguard, Brandon ( Colm Meaney ), also tags along but promises he'll stay out of the way. And young English girl Rosa (Grace Nettle) is spending some time with her grandparents, Mardy ( Phyllis Logan ) and Hank (James Carroll Jordan). Flight attendant Danilo (Manuel Pacific) sees to all of their needs ... until the plane strikes a flock of birds and crashes into the ocean. Only six people are left alive, dependent on a pocket of air in the submerged plane. They must find a way to escape—but even if they could swim back up to the surface, there's another problem to deal with: a school of deadly sharks.

Is It Any Good?

Although it starts with a not-bad idea, this disaster thriller is preposterously, laughably bad. It takes itself too seriously and is packed with poor acting, poor dialogue, poor continuity, and poor logic. Like so many post- Jaws shark movies, No Way Up swims along on the bare minimum, perhaps expecting its toothy villains to sell the movie by themselves. Certainly the humans aren't going to do that. Logan and Meaney are accomplished actors, but you'd never know it watching them in this. Struggle as they may, they can't bite through the material's mediocrity. The others fare so badly that you might find yourself starting to hope that they'll become shark food (especially the irritating Kyle, who cruelly harasses gay flight attendant Danilo and seems to have a poorly timed, poorly conceived one-liner for every grim situation).

The filmmakers can't even properly explain just where the characters are in the plane and how the life-saving air bubble occurs; it doesn't seem to match with the exterior shots of the slowly cracking-apart underwater plane. No Way Up is the screenwriting debut of producer Andy Mayson, who previously worked on the suspenseful shark movie 47 Meters Down and its abysmally bad, unneeded sequel 47 Meters Down: Uncaged . It seems as if Mayson—who also produced this—is merely cashing in on shark fever without bothering to make a good movie.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about No Way Up 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Is the movie scary ? What's the appeal of scary movies? Why do people sometimes enjoy being scared?

What's the appeal of shark movies? Why are so many people fascinated by them? Did you learn anything from this movie?

Do characters here have depth and agency? Did you notice any stereotypes ?

What does the movie have to say about death, grief, and mourning?

Movie Details

• In theaters : February 16, 2024
• On DVD or streaming : February 16, 2024
• Cast : Sophie McIntosh , Phyllis Logan , Colm Meaney
• Director : Claudio Fah
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : RLJE Films
• Genre : Thriller
• Topics : Ocean Creatures
• Run time : 90 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language and bloody/grisly images
• Last updated : February 26, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Movie Reviews

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For a few gossamer years in the 2010s, movie fans ate well—perhaps a little too well. That was, of course, courtesy of a little red debit card called MoviePass, the product of an ambitious startup that promised nirvana for any red-blooded cinephile with too much time on their hands: Pay a monthly fee, then use your debit card and an app to see one movie a day, wherever you want, any theater you want. If it seemed too good to be true, that's because it was. After all, how could a company possibly make money off a $9.95/month fee, in exchange for up to thirty movie tickets that cost at least that much? 

The secret, as Muta'Ali's documentary "MoviePass, MovieCrash" reveals, is that they didn't. And the reasons for such a bizarre business model (and the hardworking, idealistic employees they hurt along the way) are stranger than you might think.

Credit to Muta'Ali for finding an interesting angle on the material, which, ultimately, is about the rise and fall of a scrappy startup business—hardly the most cinematic of subjects, even if movies lie at the core of its business model. See, while we're used to stories of venture capital ghouls and unchecked capitalist greed taking down even the most well-intentioned businesses, "MoviePass" recognizes its uniquely tragic nature as a cautionary tale for entrepreneurial racism: The story of two idealistic Black founders, their sensible idea for a buzzworthy company, and the greedy, old, white investors who stole it from them and spent it into the ground within a year. 

If there are any heroes in this story, they are Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt , two Black entrepreneurs who leapt wide-eyed into an idea to help save movie theaters by incentivizing participation through a subscription-based platform. Spikes, in particular, cuts an especially earnest figure, a shy, unassuming guy with glasses and a sensible head on his shoulders; we hear of his early days as a VP of marketing for Miramax, the creator of Urbanworld Film Festival, and more. Together with Watt, the pair endeavored to do what few Black entrepreneurs could do in the wide white world of business: create something that made a difference.

The trouble came when it came time for actual financing and the old, pale faces who could give it to them. This led them into the crosshairs of Mitch Lowe and Ted Farnsworth , who'd quickly maneuver themselves from financiers and advisors to replacing Spikes and Watt on the board and in the CEO chair in 2016. It's here that MoviePass's sensible, if unworkable, business model would rise beyond sustainability: it was they that suggested the too-good-to-be-true $10/mo offer, which would finally push the company's subscriber base beyond the 20,000 plateau, and the parent company's stock to new heights. In dueling interviews, Muta'Ali positions MoviePass's ultimate fate as the tug of war between quieter, more sensible Black businessmen and the loud, greedy white vultures who steal their idea and suck the marrow from its bones until there's nothing left. 

From there, the doc proceeds down predictable though not entirely un-entertaining paths. Muta'Ali covers a lot of thematic ground here, from the sky-high expectations set for the company by Lowe and Farnsworth in one breathless media appearance after another to the cockamamie schemes they'd come up with to market the thing. (One particular boondoggle involves their inexplicable million-dollar installation at Coachella in 2018, complete with a helicopter-bound Dennis Rodman .) There are even a few bits of welcome millennial nostalgia about the promise of MoviePass, complete with former subscribers and even employees holding up their red debit cards as a souvenir of what once was. 

If there's a flaw to "MoviePass, MovieCrash," it's that these elements hardly elevate it beyond the boilerplate documentary structure formulas. Muta'Ali's work primarily relies on a series of talking heads interspersed with archival footage and a few extremely crude animations to illustrate the skyrocketing, then plummeting, stock price of MoviePass' parent company. Its structure is also a bit helter-skelter, awkwardly transitioning from 2016 to the company's beginnings and beyond, with some clumsy transitions between these varying segments. And, by God, we have to retire the practice of documentaries starting with essentially a two-minute trailer for themselves, giving you the whole thing in microcosm before getting started. 

The doc struggles to land on whether MoviePass was a predetermined failure or something that  was failed , and the lack of participation in many of the key players for the latter hurts its ability to probe deeper. A running thread near the end implies that Farnsworth's claim to fame as a big-time business mogul is built on hot air, but very little time is given to that semi-revelation. (Lowe, for his part, is the only one of MoviePass's murderers who gets interviewed, and his cluelessness is at least perversely entertaining.) The doc even puts an opportunistic stain on Spikes, however inadvertently, as the closing minutes turn into an advertisement for his new book.

In the final stretch, we learn that there's hope for MoviePass yet: Spikes bought the company back in 2021 and plans to run it the way it ought to have been run in the first place. With the state of moviegoing being as dire as it is now (dwindling attendance, even for films like "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga"), and the belated adoption of similar models from AMC and Regal, here's hoping he can find a way to make it work. But even this revelation feels like an afterthought in "MoviePass, MovieCrash," instead offering a surface-level dissection of another startup that intended to disrupt an industry, only to burn up in the atmosphere of its own greed. 

On Max now.

Clint Worthington

Clint Worthington is a Chicago-based film/TV critic and podcaster. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of  The Spool , as well as a Senior Staff Writer for  Consequence . He is also a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and Critics Choice Association. You can also find his byline at RogerEbert.com, Vulture, The Companion, FOX Digital, and elsewhere. 

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‘The Apprentice’ Review: Sebastian Stan Plays Donald Trump in a Docudrama That Nails Everything About Him but His Mystery

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A lot of people would disagree with me, but I think there’s a mystery at the heart of Donald Trump. Many believe there’s no mystery, just a highly visible and documented legacy of bad behavior, selfishness, used-car-salesman effrontery, criminal transgressions, and abuse of power. They would say that Trump lies, slurs, showboats, bullies, toots racist dog whistles so loudly they’re not whistles anymore, and is increasingly open about the authoritarian president he plans to be.

All totally true, but also too easy. What it all leaves out, about the precise kind of man Donald Trump is, is this:

Popular on Variety

And that, in its way, is the hook of “ The Apprentice .” Written by journalist Gabriel Sherman, and directed by Ali Abbasi (who made a splash two years ago with the Iranian serial-killer drama “Holy Spider”), the movie is a spirited, entertaining, and not overly cheeky docudrama about the years in which Donald Trump came to be Donald Trump. Which is to say: He wasn’t always.

And that’s when a pair of eyes fixate on him. Seated at a table in the next room is Roy Cohn ( Jeremy Strong ), the infamous HUAC lawyer and Red Scare architect who became notorious for being the man who sent the Rosenbergs to the electric chair. Twenty years later, he’s a private lawyer and fixer who’s friends with everyone that counts (mobsters, politicians, media barons). He eyes Donald Trump like a hungry dragon looking at a virgin. Cohn’s head is tilted down, his black eyes are tilted up (so that there’s half an inch of white at the bottom of them). This is the Cohn Stare, and it can accurately be described as a look of homicide. It’s not that he wants to kill you. It’s that he wants to kill something — it will be you, or it will be another party on your behalf.

Cohn summons Trump over to his table, and Jeremy Strong, speaking in a fast, clipped voice that fires insults like bullets, instantly possesses us. With silver-gray hair cut short and those eyes that see all, Strong does a magnetic impersonation of the Roy Cohn who turned bullying into a form of cutthroat vaudeville (and a new way to practice law), putting his scoundrel soul right out there, busting chops and balls with his misanthropic Jewish-outsider locker-room wit. He’s not just cutting, he’s nasty . And that’s to his friends! Trump, by contrast, seems soft — maybe shockingly soft if you’ve never seen a clip of him from the ’70s. He’s like a big shaggy overgrown boy, and though he’s got his real-estate ambition, his power-broker dreams (he drives a Caddy with a license plate that says DJT), he has no idea how ruthless he’s going to have to be to get them.

Cohn the reptile looks at Trump and sees a mark, an ally, maybe a kid with potential. He’s very good-looking (people keep comparing him to Robert Redford), and that matters; he’s also a lump of unmolded clay. As Trump explains, his family is in a pickle that could take them down. The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization for discriminating against Black people when it comes to who they’ll rent their apartments to. Since the family is, in fact, guilty, there doesn’t seem to be a way out of it. But Cohn, right there, floats a plan for how to do it. He says: countersue the government. It’s part of his strategy of attack, attack, attack (the first of his three rules for living).

That Roy Cohn successfully beat the government on behalf of the Trump Organization, neutering the discrimination suit, is a famous story. If Gabriel Sherman’s script is to be believed, “The Apprentice” tells an even more scandalous version. In the movie, Cohn is going to lose the case and knows it. (The Trump Organization has rent forms by Black applicants marked with the letter “C.”) So at a diner, he and Donald have a casual meeting with the federal official who’s authorizing the case. He won’t budge. But then Cohn pulls out a manila envelope. Inside it are photographs of the official frolicking with cabana boys in Cancun. Cohn, who is gay, turns his own closeted existence into a form of power. A deal is struck. And Trump is off and running, his empire built on a poison pill.

New York, at this point, is in its shabby edge-of-bankruptcy ’70s dystopian era, and Donald is determined to change that. His dream is to buy the boarded-up Commodore Hotel on 42nd St., right next to Grand Central Terminal, and turn it into a glittering luxury Grand Hyatt hotel. The area is so decrepit that most people think he’s nuts. But this is where we can see something about Trump: that he wasn’t just a charlatan with a big mouth — that he had a perception of things. He was right about New York: that it would come back, and that deals like his could be part of what brought it back. But the art of the deal, in this case, comes from Roy Cohn. He’s the one who greases the wheels to make it happen. And Donald is now his protégé.

Ali Abbasi stages the “The Apprentice” with a lot of jagged handheld shots that look a bit too much like television to my eyes, but they do the job; they convince us of the reality we’re seeing. So does the décor — as Trump starts to develop a taste for more lavish surroundings, the movie recreates every inch of baroque merde -gold vulgarity. And Sebastian Stan’s performance is a wonder. He gets Trump’s lumbering geek body language, the imposing gait with his hands held stiffly at his sides, and just as much he gets the facial language. He starts out with an open, boyish look, under the mop of hair we can see Donald is obsessed with, but as the movie goes on that look, by infinitesimal degrees, turns more and more calculated.

For its first half, “The Apprentice” is kind of a knockout: the inside look at how Trump evolved that so many of us have imagined for so long, and seeing it play out is both convincing and riveting. Yet I have an issue with the movie, and it all pivots around the mystery of Trump. I don’t think “The Apprentice” ever penetrates it.

There’s a moment when Trump is getting too big for his britches, ignoring another lesson that’s there in the Cohn worldview, which is that you have to maneuver in the real world. Cohn questions Trump’s obsession with building a casino in Atlantic City, a place Cohn says has “peaked.” He’s right. Trump winds up making bad investments, flying too close to the sun, and ultimately shutting Roy out ­— treating Roy the way that Roy treats everyone else. It’s an evolution of supreme hubris, especially when you think back to the slightly sheepish kid from Flushing who lined up to kiss Cohn’s ring.

The trouble is, we don’t fully see where that side of Trump comes from. In a relatively quick period, starting from around the time of the Atlantic City deal, and building through the moment when he pisses off the Mobster and Cohn crony Tony Salerno (Joe Pingue), which results in the half-built Trump Tower being set on fire by Salerno’s goons, Donald turns into the Trump we know today: the toxically arrogant man-machine of malignant narcissism, who treats everyone around him like crap. His marriage to Ivana devolves into a loveless debacle. He turns on his downward-spiraling alcoholic brother like a stranger. He becomes so heartless that he makes Roy Cohn look civil. He turns on Cohn, in part because Cohn has AIDS, which freaks Donald out.

We know Donald Trump did all these things. But what we don’t see, watching “The Apprentice,” is where the Sociopath 3.0 side of Trump comes from. His daddy issues, as the film presents them, won’t explain it (not really). The fact that he gets hooked on amphetamines, popping diet pills around the clock, is part of it. Yet the Trump we see goes through a looking glass of treachery, leveraging his empire — and what’s left of his emotions — to within an inch of his life. And once that happens, we’re simply watching a well-acted TV-movie made up of familiar anecdotes built around the Trump we already know. At that point, “The Apprentice,” good as much of it is, becomes far less interesting. The mystery the movie never solves is what Trump was thinking, deep down, when he chose to become Donald Trump.  

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (In Competition), May 19, 2024. Running time: 140 MIN.

• Production: Kinematics LLC, Baer Development/Gidden Media presents, in association with Rocket Science, Head Gear Films and Metrol Technology, Project Infinity, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, a Scythia Films, Profile Pictures, Tailored Films production. Producers: David Bekerman, Jacob Jarek, Ruth Treacy, Julianna Forde, Louis Tisné, Ali Abbasi. Executive producers: Amy Baer, Mark H. Rappaport, Emanuel Nunez, Grant S. Johnson, Phil Hunt, Compton Cross, Thorsten Schumacher, Levi Woodward, Niamh Fagan, Gabriel Sherman, Greg Denny, James Shani, Noor Alfallah, Andy Cohen, Andrew Frank, Neil Mathieson, Lee Broda, Blair Ward, Anders Erdén.
• Crew: Director: Ali Abbasi. Screenplay: Gabriel Sherman. Camera: Kasper Tuxen. Editors: Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Olivier Bugge Coutté. Music: David Holmes, Brian Irvine, Martin Dirkov.
• With: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Ben Sullivan, Mark Rendall, Joe Pingue, Jim Monaco, Bruce Beaton, Ian D. Clark, Valerie O’Connor.

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RETRO REVIEW: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie Offers Little Beyond Nostalgia

While Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie serves up plenty of nostalgia, it isn't quite enough to elevate the film in any meaningful way.

For any child who grew up during the '90s, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was a staple of after-school viewing. It surged to unmitigated popularity in the decade's early years, with the TV series, books and toys being found in almost every household at the time. It was the obvious choice, then, for Saban Entertainment to fast-track a live-action film simply titled Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. While the movie was released between Seasons 2 and 3 of the TV series, it actually took place in a different continuity. While it was true to the endearingly cheesy tone of the original TV series, the film is one example of a bigger, more polished production actually working against it.

Holding the distinction of being the first installment of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to not feature archived footage from Japan's Super Sentai series -- something the TV series was infamous for -- the film has a noticeably different feel anytime the characters are suited up. Because of this, the scenes featuring the Power Rangers, their allies and their villains come off extremely strange, even for fans of the TV show. However, that's far from the only issue found within the movie and, unlike the series' main town, Angel Grove, the end result is something even Zordon's teen superhero squad can't save.

Why Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie's Canon Status Is Complicated

Mighty morphin power rangers: the movie is too unbalanced, even by the tv show’s standards, a poor villain and some bizarre story choices make the movie difficult to follow, 10 best power rangers season premieres, ranked.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie gets a few things right when it comes to action and performances. The cast, which was held over from the TV series, deliver similarly good performances to those found in the original TV series. To some, their over-the-top one-liners and overall silly delivery may be a little too much to handle. Couple that with the lack of any true character development among the teammates or stakes that weren't predictable, and the movie doesn't hold up as anything more than an extended episode of Power Rangers on TV.

The movie's primary villain, Ivan Ooze, while powerful, is far too campy even for this particular series, which is made up almost exclusively of corny but fun villains. With an origin that almost directly mirrors that of classic villain Rita Repula's, Ivan Ooze does little to sway the idea that this movie is just a longer Power Rangers episode. Paul Freeman's scenery-chewing performance as Ivan Ooze is also tough to stomach. For a series chock-full of goofy villains, most of them at least come off somewhat earnest in their attempts at villainy. Ivan Ooze, on the other hand, comes off as a Power Rangers parody more than anything . Worse, his dialogue is comprised mostly of a poorly-developed stand-up routine.

The movie's plot was all over the place, despite it following the same generally simple structure of an episode of the TV series. However, in this film, there was far too little action inside the iconic Power Ranger suits. This was the one thing audiences expected from a movie based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers , especially since such fights were one of the show's biggest draws. After losing their suits early on, the Rangers are transported to the planet Phaedos for a bizarre sequence where they are aided by a Xena-knockoff named Dulcea . She then grants them the mystical power of the Ninjetti, complete with new suits that are based on the classic ninja archetype and are far less satisfying than the Rangers' classic armor. These suits and their origins don't seem to share any cultural similarities to real-world ninjas, so their designs don't really make sense.

The heroes finally retrieve their classic looks after about an hour into the film, but notably when they aren't interacting with the primary villain whatsoever. Instead, they're busy focusing on finding a monolith that will return them home. This is the weakest stretch of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, despite featuring some of the movie's most fun effects. By the time the Rangers arrive back on Earth for the final climactic battle, the movie had already lost a lot of goodwill among fans who were looking forward to more classic Power Rangers action . Kudos to the director Bryan Spicer and writers Arne Olsenm and John Kamps for at least trying to make the film feel the tiniest bit different from the TV series, but the creative decisions made here didn't do the film any justice. Instead, they just bogged down the narrative to a halt.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie’s Effects Are a Mixed Bag

The movie’s costumes and practical effects are charming enough, but the cgi fails it, 25 power rangers you totally crushed on (and what they look like now).

Even at the height of its popularity, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was never known for top-notch effects. This was especially true since most of its action sequences were repurposed footage from an old low-budget series from Japan. That being said, there was always a certain charm to the cheesy practical costumes in this villain-of-the-week series. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie featured more of the same in that regard. The series' main antagonists, Rita Repulsa, Lord Zed and Goldar, looked great as ever. There were also other fun creature designs found throughout the film, like the Tengu found on Phaedos. However, the issues in the special effects department arise thanks to the overreliance on CGI that the TV series never had. Ivan Ooze's arrival as he was hatched from his ancient egg was a sight to behold for all the wrong reasons, showing just how dated these effects are in 2024.

Likewise, the prreviously practical Zords from the series -- which were always stunt actors wearing robot costumes in the style of classic tokusatsu movies and serials from Japan -- were replaced with CGI that aged like milk. While most of the practical effects in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie were commendable for 1995, the CGI effects are unforgivable. It doesn't help that this film came out two years after Jurassic Park redefined what cinematic CGI effects could look like. While these two movies' direction and budget were obviously worlds apart, it would have been smart for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie to stick to the show's charming practical effects instead of trying (and failing) to compete with what was one of the most expensive movies of that year.

With its outdated effects, watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie in 2024 is an extremely unbalanced experience. While this may just be hindsight speaking, it's very easy to be taken out of the film entirely during these moments. After all, it's difficult to watch the screen when one's eyes are rolling into the back of their heads. To give credit where it's due, there is one sequence where the Rangers in their new Ninjetti forms battle a skeletal dinosaur that was pretty impressive. But beyond that, the best that this movie's visual effects have to offer is unintentional humor and laughs.

Nostalgia Barely Keeps Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie Afloat

The ‘90s are alive and well in this movie, but it’s not enough to save it, 10 best actors in power rangers, ranked.

Despite the glaring narrative issues and laughable visual effects, fans of the show should still be able to find enough in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie to have something resembling a good time. WIth a runtime of only an hour and 35 minutes, the film doesn't feel like it drags all too much, which is similar to any of the TV show's episode. The film has enough practical effects that come with that vintage Saturday morning feel that maintains its '90s charm. Let's face it, that's what adults in 2024 are revisiting this particular series and movie for. While the nostalgia of yesteryear is in full effect for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie , this obviously only works on people who grew up with the original series. For modern audiences experiencing the film for the first time, it's doubtful to be placed anywhere outside the classic "so-bad-it's-good" category.

That said, the action sequences are entertaining enough. While the lack of stock footage is off-putting for fans of the series, the movie's new fight scenes are admittedly still fun to watch. There is some truly wild choreography to be found in the film that immediately improves a few key sequences out of sheer absurdity. There are a few silver linings to be found in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie in the form of memorable action , which is at least more than can be said about other family movies from the same time period, especially those that featured martial arts.

There's enough classic Mighty Morphin Power Rangers action found in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, but only just barely enough -- roughly the amount of one TV episode. When the film went off the beaten path, it fell apart. While the practical effects were as charming as one would expect from Power Rangers -- especially by 1995 standards -- the CGI wasn't even up to par for the time and should have been avoided all together. It's difficult to recommend this film to anyone who isn't already a fan of the original series or of Power Rangers in general. Fans who want a little bit more to squeeze out of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers run, this movie should at least scratch that itch. After all, it truly was the last hurrah for Power Rangers ' classic era , and one that came before the TV series started taking bigger swings in the seasons and revivals to come.

Mighty Moprhin Power Rangers: The Movie is now available to own and rent physically and digitally.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993)

A team of teenagers with attitude are recruited to save Angel Grove from the evil witch, Rita Repulsa, and later, Lord Zedd, Emperor of all he sees, and their horde of monsters.

The Most Emotionally Devastating Scene In Pixar History Experienced Multiple Last-Minute Changes [Exclusive]

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Pixar's "Up," the Oscar-winning classic that's probably still best known for making audiences bawl their eyes out at the film's devastating opening 10 minutes. (The rest of the movie? Also great!) To celebrate the anniversary, I spoke with composer Michael Giacchino about his experience crafting the film's Oscar-winning score, and naturally, our conversation touched on that tearjerking opening montage and the song that underscores it, called "Married Life." As Giacchino explained, he and the filmmakers targeted that scene with precision in order to make it as resonant as possible:

"On the 'Married Life' scene, there were a couple areas that every time we did it, I'd look at it and go, 'Well, it works, but maybe it'd be better if we try this .' Because you don't really know until you put something up there, until you get there with the orchestra, you hear what it's going to sound like, you do the whole thing. So there were one or two times where I went back to that, to just target a certain area that could be better and make sure [it was].  It's nice to have those moments to be able to go back. That's why we sort of spread out the scoring schedule so that you have time to live with what you did, and you can go back and you have what we call a 'fix day' to go in and change anything I want to change, do any last minute tweaks. But 'Married Life' had a couple of those, because we just wanted it to be perfect. And even in the development of that scene, it took a while for them to really get to this place of 'this is what the story is' in the storyboard phase. So for me, it was very similar. There were a few areas where I kept needling at going, 'Oh, maybe this is too fast now. This should be slower here.'"

The first 10 minutes of Up went through a ton of changes

"We overwrote that opening like crazy," director Pete Docter told The Ringer in 2022. "I would guess we had 30 to 40 minutes of material that we slowly whittled down." Some of that whittling included cutting out dialogue that was originally slated to appear in that scene, but eventually, they realized they could rely solely on Giacchino's score and the visuals to tell this part of the story.  "Being [a] fan of silent films, I kept pushing to see how much we could take out, and discovered that it seemed like the less we had the more emotional it felt," Docter said. "No dialogue, no sound effects — just music and visuals. It's pretty tight. Every shot is a setup for elements we use later in the film."

Striking the exact right balance was tricky. They even toyed with removing the part where Ellie has a miscarriage because they thought it might be too heavy for audiences; thankfully, they put it back in, and the film retained the full emotional portrait of Carl and Ellie's journey. "We made lots of changes and adjustments, and it was really hard to know whether we were making it better or breaking it," Docter said. "Some days it would be super emotional, and other days we wouldn't feel anything at all. Oh no, we took out three frames — did we break it ?"

You can listen to my full conversation with Michael Giacchino on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast below:

You can subscribe to /Film Daily on Apple Podcasts , Overcast , Spotify , or wherever you get your podcasts, and send your feedback, questions, comments, concerns, and mailbag topics to us at [email protected]. Please leave your name and general geographic location in case we mention your e-mail on the air.

"Up" is streaming on Disney+, and while you're there, don't forget to check out the short film "Carl's Date," which serves as a sequel to the movie .

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This Way Up: Season 1 Reviews

Whether together or separately, both Horgan and Bea really grab the gifts of these roles with both hands, the result make for compelling, binge-worthy viewing that's feels like a cross between Curb Your Enthusiasm and a grown-up version of Derry Girls.

Full Review | Dec 20, 2021

I adore dry British humor. I adore off-the-cuff-seeming dialogue that elicits sudden guffaws. I adore two brainy, neurotic women bantering back and forth and not afraid...

Full Review | Oct 1, 2021

The scenes between Bea and Horgan - they've played sisters before, on the BBC series Dead Boss - sparkle with natural affection and sharp wit.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 4, 2021

The series is, above all, a meditation on loneliness in its many forms and, with its potent blend of humour and heartbreak, it succeeds in bringing us closer together.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 25, 2021

Bea and Horgan radiate a wonderful sisterly solidarity, they're uproariously funny together and apart, and the writing is a mordant delight throughout.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 28, 2021

There has been a lot of mental health depicted on TV and it's always on the way down. What I like about this one is it deals with trying to put yourself back together, rather than falling apart.

Full Review | Jul 15, 2020

Strong family love, great characters in low-key UK import.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 17, 2019

All the characters are immensely likable, but not in a subversive way: They are genuinely lovely, funny, and human. While This Way Up aches at times, it's too busy making the viewer laugh to wallow in it.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2019

It's a pleasant diversion if you're looking for something to binge quickly but, like a summer rain shower, it will be here and gone before you know it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 24, 2019

Unfortunately, the show's humor proves to be more realized than its dramatic dimensions.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2019

"This Way Up" makes the wise choice to treat its six-episode season as a reason to luxuriate in smaller moments rather than speed through them for the sake of shoehorning in extra plot developments.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Aug 24, 2019

It's a tribute to both the characterisation and script that the unflinching humour in a series built around fragile mental health never strays too close to either the exploitative or maudlin.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2019

Small in scope, infinitely charming, and intermittently devastating.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2019

Watching Aine muddle through life feels both low-stakes and a matter of life and death.

Bea and Horgan's performances are smart, playful, nimble, and rooted in empathy.

Full Review | Aug 21, 2019

This Way Up takes the idea of happy-sad television to a new level, one that is ultimately rewarding.

It's very good, and it's warm and clever, and it will - or would - precisely hit the spot for a lot of people, if only they can find it.

This Way Up remains irresistible and not just because it's an easy and enjoyable binge-watch. Aisling Bea's performance is dynamic...

Full Review | Aug 20, 2019

It's a smart, sweet, sad, winning little show, and the season goes down easily in one burst.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 20, 2019

I don't remember the last time I saw a character in a comedy this clearly defined as being not funny in such a realistic way.

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For 30 years Scott LoBaido has been a voice, fighting with you and for you on so many issues, promoting and celebrating Old Glory, those who serve, and our great American way, using art, hea... Read all For 30 years Scott LoBaido has been a voice, fighting with you and for you on so many issues, promoting and celebrating Old Glory, those who serve, and our great American way, using art, heart, and passion. Now it is time to tell his story, the good, the bad and the ugly that got... Read all For 30 years Scott LoBaido has been a voice, fighting with you and for you on so many issues, promoting and celebrating Old Glory, those who serve, and our great American way, using art, heart, and passion. Now it is time to tell his story, the good, the bad and the ugly that got him to where he is today, advocating as a giant voice for you, the American People, throu... Read all

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Baby Reindeer Shows the Litigious Risks of the 'True Story' Label

Fiona Harvey, the 'real-life Martha,' is talking about suing Netflix and Richard Gadd for how they depicted her in Baby Reindeer.

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The difference behind the many "true story" labels, what we could use is a better usda & fda for true stories, martha is a convicted stalker in baby reindeer, fiona harvey (the real-life martha) is suing netflix.

When TV series or films claim to be based on a "true story," a certain curiosity comes up that captivates audiences. Viewers, for whatever reason, enjoy it when a drama is alleged to be rooted in real stories and people, whether it's an inspirational true story or a disturbing true crime. Many people find it fascinating when a gory or horrible situation actually holds some truth. With true crime, it could be a combination of schadenfreude and a Freudian death wish, or a pessimistic confirmation bias that the world is indeed a dangerous place, or any other thing — we aren't prepared to psychoanalyze it. But we do want to look at Netflix's Baby Reindeer and its relation to the 'true story' label.

Baby Reindeer is one of the many shows that claims to be based on a true story, but there is a certain individual who is saying otherwise. Originally, the title started off as an autobiographical one-man show performed by Richard Gadd, but it was later picked up by Netflix and developed into a seven-part miniseries. This is where the problem began. While Gadd and Netflix were praised for telling such a raw and honest tale, the real-life individual who was the inspiration behind Martha Scott (the unhinged stalker of Gadd's character) was getting bombarded by internet sleuths who discovered her identity.

Now, Fiona Harvey, who has admitted that Martha is a representation of herself, is taking legal action against Netflix , Gadd, and everyone else who she feels has defamed her name. This is just a microcosm, though. Here is how Baby Reindeer shows the litigious risks of the "true story" label.

When it comes to creating something interesting that will get people's attention, writers often pull from what they know. This can be personal experiences, a story they overheard, or a dramatized version of something that they vaguely remember from long ago. The idea is that the more personal a storyline or character is for an artist, the more authentic the result will be .

Obviously, for moral, artistic, and legal reasons, writers and directors have to be careful about how they label their works. Phrases like "based on a true story," "based on true events," and "inspired by real life events" actually mean something different to people, and if certain individuals don't like what they see on the big screen, they will lash out.

What Does "Based on a True Story" Really Mean?

With so many different phrases paired with the creative freedom writers and directors like to take with their works, it is difficult to really accept anything as 100% true. For a work to be labeled "based on a true story," the plot needs to do its best to follow the story that actually took place. Names, ages, locations, and minor details may be altered for a variety of reasons, but for the most part, the story tends to follow a more factual route. Some examples of this include Netflix's Narcos , Baby Reindeer , and When They See Us .

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Based on true events or experiences.

Now, works that openly say "based on true events/experiences" are a different situation. Take Titanic for instance; the ship going down and many people losing their lives is factual, but the love story between Rose and Jack is completely made up. Michaela Coel's limited series I May Destroy You is based on a real sexual assault that occurred in her life, but the story that follows did not necessarily happen. These works take a particular incident and use it as the foundation for the rest of their story.

Inspired by Real Life Events

Then there is "inspired by real life events", which allows the most creative liberties as an overall story can be tweaked and dramatized to create a certain message. A single person or situation can inspire anyone, but to be able to craft a whole TV series or movie around it, extra people and events need to be added. Think about Netflix's Orange is the New Black or the iconic sports film Saturday Night Lights ; both deal with inspirational people and scenarios, but there is a lot of fiction thrown in to keep things interesting.

Related: Netflix Says They Took 'Every Reasonable Precaution' to Disguise Real-Life Identities of Baby Reindeer Characters

After a period of relative lawlessness in the grocery game, the FDA and USDA have started to crack down on the false labeling of "organic," "heart healthy," "free range," and other health-related terms in food marketing. While this area is still a bit shadowy (the term "natural" has a pretty loose definition and is not often investigated by the FDA, for instance), the idea is applicable to art that's "based on a true story."

It would be interesting to have a dedicated body to objectively research titles and have authoritative guidelines for whether something justifies as being "based on a true story." The group could also determine better ways to protect real individuals from exposure or harm.

At the start of the very first episode of Baby Reindeer , the words "this is a true story" come across the screen — notice how there is no "based on" or "inspired by." This, along with the fact that Gadd is the one starring as a version of himself, has led fans to believe that Netflix's depiction of what Gadd went through is entirely accurate. The problem is that viewers only get Gadd's perspective of things. Gadd has said and shown throughout the series that he was going through a lot of horrible things in his life when he met Martha, so is there some way that he is not remembering the whole truth?

The Problems With an Unreliable Narrator

First of all, no one wants to point fingers and call someone a liar for how they remember traumatic incidents. How Gadd's emotions are depicted in Baby Reindeer may be truthful and what his character experiences in the show may be accurate in his own mind, but there is at least one major plot point that has been called completely false.

In the final episode, Martha (Jessica Gunning) is arrested and convicted of harassment and stalking. Martha pleads guilty and is sentenced to nine months in prison along with having a five-year restraining order, but Fiona Harvey says that nothing like that ever occurred. In fact, she says that a lot of things that Martha did throughout the series were completely made up. Now, it is one thing to stretch the truth about what a stalker did, but saying that a real-life person has a criminal past without fully producing the evidence has proved to be a nasty legal situation .

Related: UK MP Demands Proof From Netflix Over 'Convicted Stalker' Claim in Baby Reindeer

It did not take long for Baby Reindeer fans to dig into Richard Gadd's past and find that the woman who stalked him for a certain length of time (it certainly was not two years) was Fiona Harvey. Emails, text messages, letters, and phone calls then started to consume Harvey's life, and after about a month, she decided to tell the world her side of the story.

On May 9, 2024, Harvey joined Piers Morgan on Uncensored as she refuted many claims and simply brushed off a lot of allegations from the hit show. Morgan seemed bothered by Harvey's back-and-forth answers, but he did admit that he was not trying to use his platform as a "gotcha" situation.

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Fiona harvey is going public with her frustrations.

Harvey has since released a statement saying, "Nobody ever approached me for any comment on the accuracy of Baby Reindeer , or the very serious and damaging allegation that I am a convicted criminal, with a serious criminal record, who has spent time in prison." She goes on to say that she is "putting together a legal team, in the UK and in the US, to take forward legal action against all of those who have lied about me and used my image to make large sums of money" ( via Deadline ). While some fans may find Harvey's explanation of things tough to believe, the fact that a criminal record has not emerged has people wondering just how much truth is told in Baby Reindeer .

Throughout these next couple of months, it is likely that we will see a rather public feud between those involved, but for now, we should take the "based on a true story" label with a grain of salt in all circumstances.