MANIAC
Hill. Stone. Fukunaga. Netflix. Yes.
★★★★ OUT NOW / NETFLIX EPS VIEWED 10 OF 10 DIRECTED BY Cary Fukunaga
CAST Emma Stone, Jonah Hill, Sonoya Mizuno, Justin Theroux, Sally Field
PLOT Troubled Owen (Hill) and Annie (Stone) join an Ai-controlled pharmaceutical trial intended to wipe out the need for therapy. But when a computer malfunction occurs, they are thrown together in a series of drug-induced dream-world adventures. IT’S HARD TO know where to start with Maniac. Largely because Maniac
itself doesn’t know where to start. The first episode hurls us into a retro-tech world that seems to be a vision of now from the perspective of the ’80s, throwing out numerous Philip K. Dickian, dystopian touches without giving us a chance to properly absorb them. It juggles a plot about a mentally ill rich guy named Owen (Hill) who joins a dodgy-sounding medical trial that blends artificial intelligence with hallucinogenic drugs, and seemingly meets the girl of his dreams, Annie (Stone). It is overwhelming, befuddling and frustrating. You’d be forgiven for finding it a complete turn-off and, well, turning Maniac off.
But here’s a tip: don’t. Stick with it. You will be rewarded. Loosely adapted by Patrick Somerville (formerly a writer on the American remake of The Bridge)
from a Norwegian show about a man in a mental institution who conjures up adventures in various different genres, Maniac gradually blooms into a compelling and darkly funny pseudoscience-fiction romance, which folds together elements of Brazil, Total Recall and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Though the film it most closely resembles is Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
Somerville’s ambitious remix settles into a rhythm of presenting Hill and Stone in odd situations as their characters hallucinogenically live out their anxieties via unwitting avatars, or “reflections”. Every episode is exquisitely directed by Cary Fukunaga, whose gliding long takes are applied to a variety of different milieux. One instalment presents a Fargo-esque ’80s caper in which they’re a married couple trying to liberate a stolen lemur from a fur-coat store. Another casts Stone as a half-elf ranger in a Lord Of The Rings-esque fantasy. Meanwhile, in the ‘real’ world, the just-as-flawed doctors running their trial (Theroux and Mizuno) have to contend with malfunctions brought about by the fact that their big, flashinglight computer is depressed.
As proven years ago by Superbad, Hill and Stone make a solid double act, but it is the latter who really owns this ten-part mini-series. Whether playing the abrasive Annie, or any of her “reflections”, she pulls you past all the superficial bizarrities of Somerfield’s psychedelic multiverse and grips you with a powerful emotionality as Annie confronts her own guilt about the death of her sister (Ozark’s Julia Garner). She’s also very funny, and Hill clearly needs her around; whenever their characters are separated, you pine for her return.
Like Legion, Maniac revels in its wild weirdness, but once it settles down, it’s less hyperactive than Noah Hawley’s X-universe freak-out, and much warmer. It might start stutteringly, but you will fall for it, and it ends so beautifully you may even find some brine in your eye. DAN JOLIN
VERDICT After an off-putting opening, Maniac morphs into an entertainingly bonkers genre mash-up that’s both a surreal satire about therapy and a rather affecting love story.