Deafness doesn’t define these best friends
“This Close” is a groundbreaking series, but that’s not why you should watch it.
The six-episode first season, premiering Wednesday, Feb. 14, on Sundance Now, the AMC premium content service, is about a straight woman and a gay man, who are best friends. They are also deaf, and are played by Shoshannah Stern as Kate, and Josh Feldman as Michael. They created the show and are also deaf.
So that’s the groundbreaking part — a good portion of the show’s dialogue is signed with subtitles. It takes about a minute to get used to the subtitles, but by the second minute, you are already fully engaged with the compelling and complicated lives of these two best friends and their friends.
Kate is engaged to Danny (Zach Gilford), and Michael has just broken up with his fiance, Ryan (Colt Prattes). In various ways, the series is about fitting in without losing your individual identity. Kate and Michael lead normal lives, filled with all the elements of
any ordinary life. The fact that they are deaf doesn’t change how they feel or what they want in life and in relationships.
Hearing people, on the other hand, often treat them in ridiculous ways. A sales clerk shouts very loudly as if that will help Kate read her lips better. Complete strangers will express sadness and pity when they find out that Kate is deaf. Her boss, Stella (Cheryl Hines), makes a big deal out of the fact that she has hired a deaf employee, but it’s all for show. Kate’s deafness doesn’t limit her skills in any way in the high-powered Los Angeles talent management company Stella runs. But still, Stella hasn’t allowed her to manage any clients.
In the world at large, Kate and Michael are in a minority. But among their friends and lovers, the equation changes. Inevitably, Kate and Michael fall into signed conversations no one else can join. Danny feels excluded, and we can understand that. At the same time, now we know how Kate feels when she is out with Danny’s hearing friends and he doesn’t make any effort to loop her in on their conversation.
Yes, there is a message here, but perhaps more important to why the series easily engages us is it is about communication in a larger sense. Danny is learning to sign, but he’s not very good at it. Is he trying hard enough or does he demonstrate a hearing person’s sense of entitlement? The fact that he may not be trying hard enough mirrors deeper communication issues in his relationship with Kate.
Ryan is also hearing, but he’s made more of an effort to learn to sign. He’s fully able to have entire conversations with Michael, as well as with Michael’s mother, Annie (Marlee Matlin), by signing. Yet actual communication, whether through speech and hearing or through sign or lip reading, isn’t as important as honest communication.
That’s why Ryan and Michael broke up. These themes are played out through superb performances by the entire cast, including Moshe Kasher as Michael’s hearing brother, and Nyle DiMarco, past winner of “America’s Top Model,” who is deaf and plays a version of himself named Ben Genovese.
The series has some weak spots. There’s an understandable urge at certain points to preach rather than dramatize the message that Stern and Feldman want to deliver about being deaf in a hearing world. One episode finds Kate having to sub at the last minute for Genovese on a panel of differently abled actors, including RJ Mitte of “Breaking Bad,” and model and actress Angela Blackwood. Kate feels out of place, but the episode is meant to deliver the very valid message that a physical ability issue shouldn’t keep a performer from being hired for a job he or she is qualified for.
Overall, though, “This Close” isn’t a public service message. It’s a tender, compellingly realistic story about modern relationships. Its charm comes through loud and clear, even when words are not spoken aloud.