HULU, with FX, is airing a new series -- thriller -- and a new documentary. In different ways, both disappoint.
The series, DEVS, is an interesting women in jeopardy series. It's not novel or unique and is pretty much what we've been seeing since back in the day when NBC was starring Susan Anton in STOP SUSAN WILLIAMS. It's also really another 100 MEN AND A GIRL -- Deanne Durbin syndrome. The women are powerless and really not on that much other than the main character Lily (Sonya Mizuno) and Kate (Alison Pill) who is more of a mystery and apparently the only developer in the entire company who is a woman.
By contrast, the show features Lily's dead boyfriend, Nick Offerman (in a great performance) as the CEO of the company, Lily's ex-boyfriend Jamie (Jin Ha) who she goes to for help, Karl Glusman as Sergei who Lily's dead boyfriend was secretly working for, Kenton (Zach Grenier) who is the head of the security (and a killer), Devs worker Stewart (Stephen McKinley Henderson) . . . We could go on and on. We could point out that even the homeless person living on Lily's doorstep is a man. We could also point out all the male extras.
Why are you making a TV show in 2020 about women as victims and women as minor characters?
Writer-director Alex Garland created the series and writes and directs every episode. In the past, he wrote the scripts for the films 28 DAYS LATER, SUNSHINE, NEVER LET ME GO and DREDD -- no, we aren't impressed either. He also wrote the script for his directorial debut EX MACHINA which showed real talent. He followed that with the impressive ANNIHILATION. DEVS is his immediate follow up to those two films.
And, as with his directorial debut, he knows visuals. He also works well with sound and there are layers to both the sound and the visual that you will not find in most TV offerings. The storyline could use some work because it's often confusing and in a manner that seems unintentional.
But what we're left with is the question of why Garland -- a man who has a son and a daughter -- thinks the height of storytelling is to surround the woman in jeopardy with men and more men.
We felt that way watching HULU's HILLARY as well. That's a four-part documentary about Hillary Swank. No, we joke, we kid. But a look at the two-time Academy Award winner would have been interesting -- probably more so than this look at Hillary Clinton. Time and again, she's framed in one shot after another always looking as though the bitter lens had been selected yet again. With regards to the facts and the truth, it's as though smeared a big goop of Vaseline over the lens to obscure any and all reality.
Yet again, we're exploring Hillary losing the 2016 election. Yet again, it's everyone else's fault except for Clinton's. Director Nanette Burstein is left with little more than footage from the 2016 campaign -- not challenging footage, just the standard nonsense that would go into a winner's reel (Hillary thought she was going to win). It's dull and processed. It's also often banal. Example? Did you know that different things were expected from Hillary as a woman in college and then different expectations in the 70s in Arkansas and then different expectations when she was First Lady, and then . . .
Shocker, right? Expectations for women have changed over time. Who knew? Just any woman who has reached the age of 18.
At one point, Hillary declares that she let people down. How?
That is the obvious question. Where's the follow up? Time and again, Hillary, soaked in her bitterness, actually provides a brief (and superficial) answer. There's no real follow up. Burstein comes off like a very timid documentary filmmaker.
That's especially true when Bill Clinton shows up. Bill wants to be contrite, you understand. So he talks about Monica Lewinsky and states that he had an affair with her to "manage my anxieties."
And he gets away with that nonsense.
There are two issues here. The first the director should have probed is, "Why do you feel the need to say that? You know that Monica was a young woman back then, you know that she was in love with you, she was prepared to do anything for you. Now here you are saying it was to 'manage my anxieties'? How insulting to her." The second should have been, "And when you harassed Paula Jones, that was also to 'manage your anxieties'? And when you slept with Gennifer Flowers while governor, that was also to 'manage your anxieties'?"
It's nonsense. He had affairs and harassed women he found desirable and he did it, most likely, because he always has to be the 'comeback kid.' He destroys -- this was always the case, with Bill He self-destructs intentionally. It's the chaos that he's familiar with and comfortable with. And that's what held the country captive over and over for eight years.
Nonsense. We're glad HULU is offering original content we just wish it had some real value.