TV Review
The return of Larry David’s brilliant satire shows he hasn’t run out of terrible ideas.
Tough times call for desperate measures. The Great Depression had Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers because nothing was so bad that it couldn’t be sorted by a vat of Brylcreem and dancing backwards in high heels. As 2020 begins with fire and fury, we get a wave of movies so old-school inspiring and improving that they make post-World War II cheer-up classic It’s a Wonderful Life seem deeply cynical. My spirits have so far been compulsorily lifted to the point of vertigo by the dutiful wartime heroism of 1917; the dutiful girl power of Little Women and, in
A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, a ruthlessly Norman Rockwell-ed Tom Hanks as the freakishly decent legend of US children’s television Mr Rogers. A softly spoken man in a cardigan encouraging us to shoulder the burden of trying to be good. Ten-second silence, please, as we remember that each of us is precious.
Fair enough, in these treacherous times.
Still, it was a relief to switch to the narcissistic new adventures of television’s most colossally unrepentant jerk. The return of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm revealed that the man who thought Fatwa! The Musical was a winner hasn’t run out of terrible ideas. A stroll with his live-in pal, Leon, is punctuated by low-level vandalism against modern manners: he breaks someone’s selfie stick; knocks over a row of electric scooters. At the gym, Larry mansplains pregnancy to a jogging mum – “You’re jostling the fetus!” At a party, the quest for a cocktail snack lights the fuse on what promises to be an ongoing #MeToo-tastrophe.
Some of the satire is brilliant. Larry attempts a cunning ruse: the Big Goodbye. You ignore some bore at a party, then try to make amends with a flatteringly extravagant leave-taking. “You’re giving me the Big Goodbye,” notes his victim. Sprung, Larry agrees to meet him for lunch. How to get out of it? He arrives at the cafe in a “people repulser” – a Make America Great Again hat. Everyone is duly repulsed. Given how repulsive Larry is without any Trumpian accessories, this may be the most vicious critique of the President yet seen on US television.
The idea will, of course, backfire in a scene in which a series of seemingly random plot grenades – the hat, a bathrobe, his manager’s unfortunate resemblance to Harvey Weinstein – go off with a satisfying bang.
David’s real life turns out to have some almost as tightly plaited plot points. He does a popular turn as Democrat presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders on Saturday Night Live. In 2017, a PBS series called Finding Your Roots discovered that they are cousins. If there isn’t a Bernie cameo in season 10, there ought to be.
Would he dare? As comedies involving borderline sociopaths go, perhaps only Fawlty Towers has packed more antisocial mayhem into a single episode. The party scene recalls the time Basil accidentally groped an Australian guest’s breast. That sort of joke is far more high stakes these days, but then that’s the point. David’s edict when he co-created Seinfeld back in 1989 – “no hugging, no learning” – means that Larry remains a dinosaur walking a new, woke world that he still thinks owes him what he wants, when he wants it.
At the coffee shop of a character who has wandered in from Seinfeld, Mocha Joe, things go badly. After a barrage of complaints from Larry – the scone is too soft, the table too wobbly, the coffee cold – the exasperated barista screams, “Get out, you old, bald f---!” Is Larry chastened? Are you kidding? He will fight for his right to be … an old, bald f---. In a US election year, as the culture wars escalate, Larry remains a man for the times. “No good?” he will enquire after some particularly egregious act. No good, Larry, no good.
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, Sky SoHo 2, Thursday, 9.00pm.
In a US election year, as the culture wars escalate, David remains a man for the times.