Nathan Fielder disappeared for a little while after The Rehearsal, a short show that was full of idiocy that I greatly enjoyed. If anyone managed to miss it, Fielder went on to produce the utterly brilliant documentary series created by John Wilson, named "How To with John Wilson", managing to become one of my favourite shows of all-time for its reflection on life's oddities and the social customs we live by. Though this show still followed with Fielder's idea of how to create a television show, pointing a spotlight at the fact that we humans are merely weird idiotic animals just struggling to survive under some pretense that we are something more, not necessarily conditioned by emotion and instinct, making strange decisions and conducting strange behavioral actions in our day-to-day lives under the mask of a civilised society. Fielder's humour is to make both himself and others the fool, to show the contrast in personalities but the similarities that are still found within. It's why his weird shows end up being so impactful, making its viewers both laugh and cringe. I love this type of comedy, that is capable of making us uncomfortable, laughing at ourselves and our insecurities.
Often enough it's hard to even tell whether Fielder is playing a character. His mannerisms and delivery tends to be so good that he seems himself. Something a bit similar to the likes of Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David's character. Or even the lesser-heard Alan Partridge character from England; so recognisable and hard to distinguish that many don't even know that he has a real name. The thing I love about such characters is that they stem from something within, a real experience or observation based on the world. There is an art to this world of comedy, the one that is painfully stupid, awkward, and just refuses to accept the world for what it pretends to be.
I was a little surprised to see The Curse suddenly spring up, but I feel it came at a great time just as How To with John Wilson finally came to an end, leaving a gap for that sort of humour to again be filled. And this time Fielder returns to the camera, doing something a little bit different, a little more narrative driven and structured.
The Curse
Funnily, I accidentally watched The Curse for the first time just last night, having accidentally, somehow, started from the sixth episode rather than the first. Yet this didn't even feel like it was halfway through the season, and itself really did feel like a first episode; it was only after that I realised. Yet it held so many questions and pulled me in, the sort of thing I expect from Fielder. It was odd, interesting, but definitely a little more story oriented. At the same time, I felt I struggled a little to really care for what it offered. I'm really not a fan of the more scripted style of this humour, where the typical strength is the unexpected, the lack of awareness those in the shot have over what's happening. The scripted side made it feel a bit more stale, less funny. And with a structure that seemed too much oriented around a narrative bundled in with a bunch of other things that just didn't really work.
I find this happens often when a show or creative gets a bit too big to continue the original "unknown" direction, as the fame gets to the filmmaker and stops them from going unnoticed in public throughout their devious schemes. I recall recently reading that the creators of Nirvana The Band The Show suffered from this, being incapable of running through the streets of Canada without people knowing who they were, resulting in them scripting the show more, and then even going as far as making a movie on it the idea rather than a new season. Some of the magic with this idea is then lost, the original appeal gone with time as it all grows a bit too big for its boots. Somewhat, The Curse feels this way. Fielder wanting to continue the odd behaviour, but not really being able to do it around the usual unsuspecting crowd.
The more I watched, the less I seemed to want to continue. Unfortunately not due to feeling uncomfortable, but more feeling that just nothing was really going on. It didn't really manage to get continuous laughs from me, and the main idea of the curse just didn't seem that interesting. Perhaps I'm the weird one here after all, as the show seems to have performed incredibly well with critics, getting quite a high score on Rotten Tomatoes; though we all know from prior films that these metric is hardly something to really take seriously. I think in this instance, Fielder just hasn't managed to win me over. That said, I wouldn't state that the show is bad, and I admire Fielder's intent to try something a bit different rather than sticking to the same thing that boosted his career in the first place.
The show does have some quality to it, especially in the more fictionalised side of things. It's just that the comedy side of it didn't land with me due to the scripted elements. Performances were good, the show's actors were mostly unknowns which is something I'm always appreciative of. And the attack on home renovation reality series is something that's certainly deserved given just how horrible and odd they truly are, making it ripe for a good mockery. But truthfully, I'm not sure I feel it's really worth my time. I can't seem to get into it. Perhaps this is finally Fielder filtering me with his style.
But I'm fine admitting that, this probably just isn't for me. I don't feel the need to watch all the episodes to know the home improvement series sucks. Coming from England, I'm all too familiar with the soulless, nonsensical genre in which boomers buy fancy homes around Europe, or some millennial couple with a million-pound budget despite being unemployed look into fixing up a riverboat because London's cost of living is insane, while the two celebrate it like it's something magical to achieve. Jokes aside, maybe one day I'll return to it, maybe one day it'll stick with me a bit more. But for now, with the limited time I have to watch things, I think I'll put my time and attention elsewhere.
