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Just curious, anyone on this sub been watching The Curse from Nathan Fielder? It's culture-war adjacent, I suppose. Really I was blown away by how meticulous it was - every shot has a purpose. I never have cared much for Nathan Fielder's other work but this was really on a whole different level. It's still very much that cringe, awkward, mockumentary style that I don't generally care for but it's much darker, weirder, more acerbic. It's uncomfortable to watch and I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. But the whole premise is basically like skewering performative progressivism and it's really a character study of the people at the center of it. Highly meta, because the show knows it's a show about a show. Mostly I just appreciate something that keeps me guessing and where I literally can't predict what the endgame is going to be. I think that's pretty rare.
But those who watched it, was it too "on the nose", not subtle enough? Were you as frustrated as I was by narrative threads that were teased but didn't ultimately lead anywhere? The finale, without giving anything away, doesn't really resolve much. And while the structure of the finale was masterful, I was disappointed that it kept the focus on the main characters and didn't resolve some of those other side plots. But maybe that was the point of a show that was about two incredibly self-involved and performative people.
I thought it was incredible. Benny Safdie was phenomenal in it. Not entertaining in the HGTV sense, but definitely gripping television, and insightful well beyond the mockery of pmcs. The last episode was a bit on the nose though, a crazy upside down world where he isn't with whit and she didn't even have to tell him, just like he said.
A redemption arc? Nah, I don't buy that. To me, Asher was irredeemable because he had no convictions. I mean he was kind of a beta male, right? So insecure, so passive, just willing to roll over for just about anyone if he thought it would get him something or make him look good. I do think he was a bit aware of it and part of him wanted to be a "better person" but he had no clue how. In a way, his fate was sort of the extreme outcome of having no substance, no grounding. His "good deeds" have no impact, he leaves no trace, he's 100% half-hearted. Here I'm thinking of how he immediately takes back the $100 he gave to the kid, or his interactions with Abshir, who really just seems annoyed with him most times and is certainly unimpressed with Asher's feeble attempts to help. He pretended to change smoke alarm batteries, for goodness' sake. He's got all this repressed anger but he can't once take an unpopular stand and stick to his principles because he barely has any.
That finale just had so much in it to process though. Someone else pointed out that Asher's predicament puts him in the same position as the people he's been trying to help, and all the help that's offered to him is completely unhelpful and the opposite of what he actually needs. And he's trying to explain to them but no one's listening and just carrying on with what they think is best. It sounds blindingly obvious in hindsight but I hadn't picked up on that aspect.
Yeah I don't buy it either really, I mostly made it as an alternative because the obvious interpretation annoys me. That's a really good point about his predicament though, because that's such a huge part of the problem. And yeah, he can't explain anything, because he made himself not worth listening to - the jester.
What did you think of Dougie? Good lord I was pissed we didn't get to find out what happened with his wife. I mean you can piece it together, but it should have been resolved with more than that last scene of his, brilliant though it was. Did you catch the drone operator's bewildered smile while Dougie broke down? I have never hated a character on tv so much and yet also desperately wished to give them a hug. And speaking of hanging threads, what was Borat's manager doing in Abshir's house?
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Haven't seen it, but Freddie deBoer wrote an article on it https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-curse-as-nathan-fielders-penance
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