The Big Picture
For the last decade, few people have made their audiences as uncomfortable as Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie. With Nathan for You—one of the best comedies of the 2010s—and last year’s The Rehearsal, Fielder has blurred the lines between reality and fiction with hilarious shows that are awkward, always surprising, and frequently moving. Meanwhile, with his brother Josh Safdie, Benny has become a master of intensity and building tension with films like Heaven Knows What, Good Time, and the suffocating Uncut Gems. Separately, this pair has made some of the most exciting entertainment in recent years. But in their first project together, The Curse, this meeting of minds creates one of the strangest and darkly hysterical shows this year that manages to be a perfect blend of their sensibilities.
Co-created and executive produced by Benny Safdie and Nathan Fielder, THE CURSE is a genre-bending series that explores how an alleged curse disturbs the relationship of a newly married couple as they try to conceive a child while co-starring in their new home-improvement show. – Showtime
Release Date November 10, 2023
Cast Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie, Corbin Bernsen, Barkhad Abdi, Constance Shulman, Gary Farmer
Genres Satire
What Is ‘The Curse’ About?
Fielder and Emma Stone star as Asher and Whitney Siegel, a newly married couple who are creating their own home improvement reality show called Flipanthropy. In this show, the Siegels take homes and convert them into eco-friendly ones in the struggling community of Española, New Mexico. With the help of Dougie Schecter (Safdie), a producer and Asher’s friend, the trio attempts to create a show that not just entertains but also informs—not only of solid green practices but of all the hard work (gentrifying) the Siegels are doing in reforming this area.
But behind the scenes, the Siegels find themselves in all sorts of problems. Their show just isn’t interesting enough, they’re attempting to have a kid, Whitney’s parents (Corbin Bernsen and Constance Shulman) are famous in the area for being slumlords, and the Siegels are still attempting to be accepted by the neighborhood. But things get even worse when Asher is cursed by a little girl, leaving him to wonder if their recent bad luck is potentially all his fault—not knowing that things are going to get much worse before they get better.
‘The Curse’ Is a Perfect Blend of Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie
The Curse works so well because it finds the perfect tonal middle ground for its three leads. With Stone, we get glimpses of the wilder, more daring work that Stone has recently done with filmmakers like Yorgos Lanthimos. For Fielder, he can create cringey, almost excruciating scenarios that you want to escape but can’t. And with Safdie, you get that similarly agonizing stress that feels like it’s growing and growing until it has nowhere to go but to explode.
Fielder also directed seven of the show’s ten episodes (with Damsel directors David Zeller and Nathan Zeller directing the other three). At the same time, Fielder and Safdie wrote the entire series (alongside frequent Fielder collaborator Carrie Kemper on two of the episodes). This melding of Safdie and Fielder makes for an excellent combo. It is often disconcerting and always fascinating to watch. Fielder frequently lingers on moments for almost too long, making the audience reckon with the tension of a scene and forcing them into the embarrassing moments of the Siegels’ lives. Both Asher and Whitney are often oblivious to how they make each other and others around them feel, and that lack of self-awareness is always captured by Fielder’s unyielding direction. Combine that with a haunting, evocative score, produced by Safdie mainstay Daniel Lopatin and composer John Medeski, The Curse’s unnerving convergence of Fielder and Safdie is two great tones that somehow work in sync with each other.
But beyond just being deeply funny and unsettling, The Curse is tackling all sorts of ideas and concepts in a way that all fits together nicely. Not only is Flipanthropy a smart take on HGTV shows, but this is also a series that explores the idea of white saviors, the choice to do good things only when an audience is around to witness them, the many, many problems with gentrification, toxic relationships, attempts to fix global problems without thinking locally, and a general lack of introspection that can make things worse for others. While Asher and Whitney might believe they have their hearts in the right place with their choices, we see egotism get the better of them, as it’s always their self-centered ways that end up overcoming all else.
‘The Curse’s Performances Are Fantastic—Especially Fielder
The Curse simply wouldn’t work without a trifecta of great actors who can balance on the tightrope that this show demands they walk. Safdie plays Dougie in a way that makes us always question his intentions: he could be trying to make Flipanthropy a genuinely good show, or he could be slowly trying to tear apart the relationship between Asher and Whitney. His troubled past and his addictions make him both a sympathetic character at times, but also a wild card—and because of this, he becomes a perfect Safdie character. Stone is also excellent as Whitney, as she attempts to do the right thing and shake the stigma of her parents, while also desperately wanting the attention that a TV show would give her. Especially later on in the season, as Whit questions everything from the direction of the show to her relationships, Stone is doing incredible work. Whit is often an insular character, and yet, through just a stare or avoidance of another character, Stone tells us everything we need to know about what’s going on in Whit’s mind. Stone couldn’t be more perfect in a role that demands someone who can play those more serious moments in one scene, before flipping to some of the trickiest comedy moments in the series.
But it’s Fielder who is an absolute force to be reckoned with in The Curse. Asher is the encapsulation of everything cringey within this series. From the first few episodes, we can tell that Asher is completely uncomfortable in his own skin. He’s painfully unfunny, to the point that Whit tells him he should take comedy classes, and when we learn that Dougie used to bully Asher, we almost understand where the bully is coming from. Asher is definitely the least likable of the Flipanthropy duo, which is made abundantly clear by a focus group, and it’s his actions that leave him and Whit to think they may be cursed. And to make matters worse, everyone seems to know that Asher has a small penis.
Fielder does an incredible job as Asher. In many scenes, Fielder is tasked with going toe-to-toe with an Oscar winner, and he holds his own against Stone, giving a truly tragic and exasperating performance that is stunning to watch. Fielder has often been characterized by his monotone delivery and straight-faced reaction to almost any situation thrown his way on Nathan For You and The Rehearsal. But in The Curse, we get to see Fielder act his heart out, and he’s tremendous in a role that plays to his strengths while pushing him further than we’ve ever seen him go before.
There’s Nothing on TV Like ‘The Curse’
The Curse is one of the most idiosyncratic shows in recent memory, and an impressive mixture of Safdie, Fielder, and Stone’s comedic sensibilities. Watching this series unfurl and its characters struggle and stumble makes it clear that there’s nothing like it on television. Fielder and Safdie have shown time and time again that they can create unconventional, staggering works, but together, The Curse is peculiar, confounding, and one of the most brilliant comedies of 2023.
Rating: A-
The Curse premieres on Paramount+ with Showtime and on-demand starting Friday, November 10, followed by an on-air debut on Showtime on Sunday, November 12. New episodes premiere on streaming on Fridays, followed by their release on Sundays on Showtime.
