SHRINK NEXT DOOR MOVIE
SHRINK NEXT DOOR SERIES

SHRINK NEXT DOOR SERIES

Here, it’s a girls high-school soccer team whose flight goes down in the remote wilderness, forcing them to survive in near-surreal environs.Ĭreated by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson (“Narcos”), the series also focuses on these characters 25 years later, clearly living with the fallout of whatever transpired during their struggle to stay alive.

SHRINK NEXT DOOR MOVIE

The stars still merit a look, but the episodes made available don’t provide much incentive for those watching the takeoff to stick around for the landing.Įasy to shorthand as a sort of “Ladies of the Flies,” the show’s template appears to draw from the true story that gave rise to the 1993 movie “Alive,” about a boys rugby team that crashed in the Andes.

“Yellowjackets” looked promising thanks to the casting and concept, but the Showtime series feels like a disappointment in terms of shaping its twin-track plot into an equally compelling drama. ‘Yellowjackets’ has a bumpy takeoffĬhristina Ricci, Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis and Tawny Cypress in 'Yellowjackets' Brendan Meadows/SHOWTIME So the fact you’re seeing this story, and presumably others, means “The Shrink Next Door” has already delivered some kind of victory.Īs for the actual size of that victory, your guess is as good as mine. Indeed, half the battle for streaming services is simply getting noticed, and the Ferrell-Rudd pairing – with a timely assist from People magazine – is calculated to accomplish that. By contrast, the beauty of streaming, which seldom shares viewership data, is if people don’t show up no one will be the wiser that it flopped. Notably, “The Shrink Next Door” follows a dramatic movie that paired Ferrell with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, “Downhill,” which headed in precisely that direction commercially. Today, with the outlook for such projects having largely fizzled – a trend that preceded the pandemic, but which has snowballed since – streaming has become the most hospitable venue for comedic actors looking to flex their dramatic muscles. Yet those roles all came in movies, when such films could still hope to find a toehold at the theatrical box office. Allen embarked on an entire new chapter in his filmmaking with movies like “Interiors,” “September” and “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” while Martin went dark in “Pennies From Heaven” and “A Simple Twist of Fate,” writing the latter. Watching the series brought to mind those aforementioned examples, such as Murray starring in a 1984 remake of “The Razor’s Edge” to mixed reaction. Ditto for Rudd, who portrays Ike as a flamboyant grifter who knows exactly what buttons to push to keep Marty in line. Spanning decades, Ferrell bears little resemblance to the wacky characters with which he’s usually been associated. Much of it involves Ike prodding Marty to lavishly spend money, reaping the rewards of that lifestyle. “He just has no boundaries, and I don’t trust him,” Marty’s sister, played by Kathryn Hahn, warns Marty, but by then, he has essentially fallen under Ike’s spell. It’s a slow burn (too slow, but hey, limited series tend to do that), as Ike begins by convincing Marty to throw himself a bar mitzvah as an adult before taking a position with his company and insinuating himself into every aspect of Marty’s life. Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf, who quickly becomes his friend and gradually manipulates him into ceding control over his life and business to Ike. The series comes in the wake of Hart’s dramatic turn in “Fatherhood,” also for Netflix, an actual true story about a widowed dad.īased on a true story already turned into a podcast, “The Shrink Next Door” tells the strange tale of Marty Markowitz (Ferrell), who reluctantly agrees to see a psychiatrist, Rudd’s Dr. It will be followed later this month by Netflix’s “True Story,” a limited series that features Kevin Hart in a not-huge-reach role – he plays a wildly successful comedian – who faces a serious crisis that includes his less-accomplished brother, portrayed by Wesley Snipes. “The Shrink Next Door,” an Apple TV+ series starring Paul Rudd (the newly minted “Sexiest Man Alive”) and Will Ferrell, represents an example of this creative trend. Streaming, however, seemingly represents an ideal venue when it comes to allowing funny people to put on their tragedy masks, providing big names to help promote these content-and-attention-hungry services and showcases for the stars that don’t require delivering boffo opening-weekend numbers. Through the years Bill Murray, Robin Williams and others all took on dramatic movie roles, in sometimes-jarring fashion for their fans. There’s a long history of comedic actors – cinematic clowns, for lack of a better term – yearning to get serious.

Shrink next door