What if Rachel isn’t a profiteer?
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Several times over the course of Flaishman in pieces (on Disney+ from 22 February) a camera movement is repeated which flips the picture upside down: views of New York with the skyscrapers pointing downwards, characters lying in bed who appear dangerously suspended in the void. At first it seems like a metaphor for the protagonist’s mental state: Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg), a New York doctor, at the age of 41 finds his life turned upside down by divorce. On the one hand, the unsustainable weekends at home alone; on the other, the discovery of apps by dating, the sexual success he had never had, the recovery of old abandoned friendships. One day, however, his ex-wife Rachel (Claire Danes) dumps the children from him and then disappears into thin air.
But it is only the first of the reversals to which we are subjected: in the first episodes the series seems a strangely masculinized version of the dramedy about love in the time of smartphones, but with the intrusive presence of the narrative voice of Libby (Lizzy Caplan), Toby’s friend from college days. But then the thematic breadth becomes ever wider and embraces, in general, adult life, the appearance of middle age: being a parent, your daughter who looks at you with hatred, frustrated ambitions, the sense of bewilderment, the friendship that survives, the need for security and the boredom of stability. Through Libby’s words we see Toby rebuild the inexorable crumbling of his marriage, but we also begin to suspect that pieces are missing, that Rachel isn’t really just an icy social climber, that Toby isn’t so innocent, until a new reversal brings us from the perspective of Rachel and then Libby herself.
Adaptation of the homonymous novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (released in Italy by Einaudi), New Times journalist specializing in celebrity portraits, compared to Philip Roth and in this case also author of most of the screenplays, Flaishman in pieces is a story of love and friendship that has at the same time an epic breath and a brilliant comedy rhythm, alternating hilariously trivial moments with frighteningly tragic ones. Just overshadowed by a sugary finish and a few too many gnomic aphorisms, it’s definitely one of the best releases of the new year.
Fleishman in pieces
Taffy Brodesser Akner
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