Josh Reviews Life & Beth

In the Hulu series Life & Beth, Amy Schumer plays Beth, a young woman whose life, when we first meet her, seems OK.  She lives in New York City, she has a cool job as a wine distributor, and she’s dating the hot guy in her office.  But then her mother, with whom she has a complicated relationship, suddenly passes away, and Beth comes to realize that she is deeply unhappy.  Looking to make some changes, she leaves the city and her job and returns to the town in Long Island where she grew up, even moving back into the house where her mother used to live.  She winds up befriending a local farmer named John (played by Michael Cera), and we follow the somewhat off-kilter pairing of these two very different people…

I loved Amy Schumer and Michael Cera in this show.  Other than that, while I was intrigued enough by the series to watch this full ten-episode first season, I can’t say it altogether clicked with me.

Amy Schumer not only stars in the show but she also created and executive-produced it, in addition to writing four of the ten episodes and directing six of them.  This is quite a showcase for her talents!  She is absolutely terrific as Beth.  I loved this character and that’s what pulled me through the season.  Ms. Schumer has carefully crafted Beth to be very funny but also very real.  The season is laser-focused on dissecting who Beth is and why she is that way, and Ms. Schumer rises to the challenge of playing the nuance in this role.  Beth is a sad, broken character, and Ms. Schumer allows us to see that and empathize with her.  And then Ms. Schumer can land a devastating punchline perfectly and my love for her character and her performance is cemented.

And then there is Michael Cera (Arrested Development), who barely cracks a smile in the entire season.  He’s crafted a particularly weird and bizarre performance as John.  John is earnest and still; he’s very quiet and then, when he speaks, he can be shockingly abrupt and direct.  This is a weird dude.  And he’s also so funny.  Mr. Cera is magically able to garner a lot of laughs by never playing the jokes — the laughs come from his total commitment to the deadpan nature of the performance.  He’s hilarious to watch; this is an extremely memorable performance, and his oil-and-water pairing with Ms. Schumer’s Beth is the heart of the show.

Where the show lost me somewhat was in how dour and downbeat it was for so much of this run of episodes.  There are some very funny moments, for sure, but I found the overall tone to be so sad and downbeat that I found the show terribly hard to watch at times.  In some ways this means the show was successful in creating a compelling character study and provoking a strong emotional reaction in me as an audience member.  But I’m not a huge fan of this type of TV show.  It’s well-done, but for me it was not much fun to watch.

Running through the show are extensive flashbacks to Beth’s teenaged years.  I was intrigued by this storytelling approach, and the actress who plays young Beth (Violet Young) is terrific.  But these flashback sequences were where the show ground to a halt for me; it was just so hard to watch the misery piled upon young Beth.  I understand that these flashbacks are the heart of the show — it’s through these flashbacks that we get to understand Beth (and also her mom) and to see the layers of damage and trauma that Beth has buried deep down in the present day.  I understand that my difficulty watching these flashbacks is more about me than the success or failure of the show.  But for me, watching this kid suffer, again and again, was rough.

Michael Rappaport (True Romance, Cop Land, and he was fun to see recently in season two of Only Murders in the Building) is terrific as Beth’s father Leonard.  Leonard is a deeply flawed person, and yet Mr. Rappaport is able to create a character I felt such empathy for.  (The sequence in which Beth ropes him into a dinner at an expensive restaurant so he can help her land two important wine clients was incredible.  I was thrilled by Mr. Rappaport’s comedic timing, and his energy and charisma, and at the same time my heart broke because of what we knew was underneath, and I was on the edge of my seat to see if he and Beth could get through the dinner without their charade crashing down around their ears.)  Laura Benanti (Tick, Tick… Boom!) is equally good as Beth’s mother Jane.  Ms. Benati (and the show’s great writing) allow us as an audience to go on a similar journey with our view of Beth’s mother as Beth herself does.  I found Jane infuriating at first; then I was sad she at what happened to her; then I was angered to see how she repeatedly failed her daughters; and finally, at the end, I was able to find some empathy for her.

Kevin Kane is great as Beth’s obnoxious boyfriend Matt.  Mr. Kane is perfect at crafting Ben so that we can laugh and him and roll our eyes at him… and then (as with Leonard, and Jane, and so many of the other characters on the show) we can feel a little empathy for him by the end.  Susannah Flood is also great as Beth’s sister Ann.  Ms. Flood is so funny in portraying how bizarre and closed-off Ann is.  (The show gradually allows us to understand why she is that way.)

Jonathan Groff (Hamilton, Frozen) is very funny in a small role as a buff personal trainer who is obsessed with Beth because she lives in New York City.  Hank Azaria (The Simpsons, Brockmire) destroys in his brief appearance as the funeral director in charge of Beth’s mother’s funeral.  Jon Glaser (Parks and Recreation) is perfectly annoying as an arrogant wine label owner.  Yamaneika Saunders commands the screen in all of her scenes as Beth’s friend Maya (who loves dating Jewish men).  Murray Hill is very memorable as Beth’s jovial boss at the wine distribution company.

I’m glad to have seen Life & Beth, and I’m impressed at what Ms. Schumer has accomplished with this series, while at the same time I freely admit that this didn’t hook me in the way I’d hoped.

Please support my website by clicking through one of our Amazon links the next time you need to shop!  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  That means I’ll receive a small percentage from any product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through.  Thank you!