Maniac

Maniac is a great example of the current state of streaming services like Netflix, both the good and the bad side. On one hand, we live in a world where a show like this would probably never be green lit into a movie or a full ongoing series just due to the fact that it both is too obscure of an idea and it just doesn't need to be stretched out. It's a self contained story and its really great that we live in a world where obscure stories like this can be told where they probably wouldn't be told otherwise.

The other side of it though is that despite the fact that A-List actors like Emma Stone, Jonah Hill, and Sally Field signed onto this project, I can't think of one person who has seen this show and I don't see that as a sustainable model for Netflix to follow.

 Maniac follows the story of two troubled people, Owen Milgrim (played by Jonah Hill), a schizophrenic black sheep who is struggling with figuring out what is real and what isn't, and Annie Landsberg (played by Emma Stone), a broke recluse dealing with a tragic loss.

These two find themselves signing up to be subjects in an experimental drug program run by three scientists (played by Rome Kanda, Sonoya Mizuno, and Justin Theroux) who are recording their results through a highly advanced and sentient computer (voiced by Sally Field).

The base story takes place in a retro-futuristic New York city (essentially what the 80's thought the 2000's were going to be) while the drug that the subjects take, take them to a number of different realities, driving home a sense of reality versus fiction in the story.

And overall, I'm glad I checked this one out.

 The number one appeal to me with this show was just how strange it is. It is so cerebral and plays with the idea of reality that it's a fun trip.

It plays a lot with the conception of what is real, what is reality, what is in your head, and how do others connect with that reality. The show is already pretty heady so this isn't so much a critique, but I actually would have liked them to go further if they could have.

About half way through, I couldn't help but relate it to Inception, but with psychotropic drugs instead of dreams. And I am all for that.

One thing I will say is that the show does have a bit of a tone problem at times.

Like on one hand, I appreciate it because it sets the show apart from something like Inception, but at the same time, the show's genre on Wikipedia is Science Fiction, Dark Comedy, Comedy-Drama, and Psychological Drama. That is a lot of genres all wrapped together and while it works sometimes, there are other times that I'm not totally sure what I'm supposed to be thinking or feeling because a similar moment was played up for laughs while the other moment isn't.

That being said, Emma Stone and Jonah Hill prove once again that they're really solid actors who have long surpassed the teenage drama where they first came together in Superbad. In tandem with that balancing of tone, both of these two were able to make me laugh but also give me the feels with Emma Stone bringing me on the verge of tears.

I think Stone probably has the better written character and through the majority of it I understood her a little more because her development as a character is just more clear but, but as I came to the end, I really came to appreciate Jonah Hill a lot more and I feel as though if I watched it again, there would be more appreciation for both characters. Again, I think Jonah Hill's character could have been written better, but the schizophrenic nature made for an interesting character, especially near the end where you understand the show and characters a little more.

Aside from the two stars, the rest of the cast is pretty great. I really started to enjoy Justin Theroux after watching him in The Leftovers, but I'm realizing that he's been a working actor for a while and I'm really just realizing it now.

Sonoya Mizuno was a fun unique character that I enjoyed throughout the entire show, as well as the other test subjects.

Sally Field doesn't really show up in person until about half way through the show but she just seemed to be having a blast with the show.

The show also does something that I always enjoy where they take actors and put them in multiple roles during the different fantasies or realities experienced throughout the drug trial.

If I had to note any ways the show could improve, it would be the tonal issues, but also just the pacing. It's a limited series so its structured like a long multiple hour movie, but I felt like there were things that were drawn out a little bit longer than they needed to. The first few episodes are a little slow and if you're not into it by the 3rd or 4th episode, you're probably not gonna like the rest of it. I think the reason I liked Stone's character more was due to the fact that she was just more lively in the real world where Jonah Hill's character is highly medicated and very monotone when he's simply his own character. To be fair it made it better when he was able to branch out with more interesting characters in the fantasies but it did slow things down, especially in the first episode.

My one other issue with the show were elements of the world. I know I said I like the unique world this is set in, but I will say that it seems like there are certain things or elements of the world that maybe are trying to make a point about a highly capitalistic retro-futuristic world, but instead just seem to be put there for the hell of it, to make the aesthetic of the show seem weird.

In the second episode, Annie goes to meet up with her drug dealer and he's playing chess with a mechanical purple koala. That is never explained. I'm not knocking the show for not explaining why there's a mechanical koala, it's just a weird way of setting up your environment with little to no explanation or reason. The example of the mechanical koala could just be to world build and flesh out the ways in which this world is different, but there's not really a reason besides just having a unique world for why this show is set in that.

It's hard to explain and maybe I'm fixating on that mechanical koala too much, but for how unique the world is, having walking ad readers, proxy friends and spouses as professions, and hibernation pods, there's not a lot of explanation for them or real application to the story. But at the same time I don't mind world creating so I don't really know where I stand on this to be honest.

 Overall, Maniac is a unique experience that is hard to really explain fully. You have to get used to the world, the concepts, the cerebralness of it, and for me that took a few episodes. It might not hook you in the first or second episode. But I think after looking at it of the sum of its whole, I'm really glad I can point to a sort of sleeper show on Netflix that feels very original and unique in a world of reboots, remakes, and building off of existing IP.

I think Maniac is a really interesting look into what makes a prestige television show and what doesn't, as well as a look into Netflix's unique approach to their streaming service and their brand.

Maniac is not going to go down as a staple limited series of Netflix's catalog and I doubt a lot of people are going to look back on that catalog even 10 years from now and say, "Oh, remember watching Maniac?". So again, it shows that dual nature of Netflix programming.

The old standard used to be HBO, with their catalog that was, and arguably still is "prestige" shows. Shows like The Wire, Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, The Newsroom, etc gave HBO a level of clout making them the precursor to the streaming world we live in today.

I think Netflix read the tea leaves correctly when they decided to pour a bunch of money into original content and knew that they couldn't lease shows like The Office forever. So they decided to make a bunch of original content and make it so audiences would subscribe in order to get specific to Netflix content.

And I think that specific content been has slowly developed with shows like House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, the Marvel TV shows, and of course Stranger Things.

The problem is, a lot of their successful shows have since ended. House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and the Marvel shows all ended. Netflix is now known for The Crown, Mindhunter, and Stranger Things, but I don't think the first two have as wide of appeal while Stranger Things is at risk of jumping the shark.

What's more is that there is SO MUCH content and expect their critical and popular acclaim shows to gain a huge following after one season, and if that first or second season don't land, they realize that it's too expensive to keep the show going.

It's a strange strategy because while they're pushing niche and unique concepts like Maniac, they're hoping that one of these multitude of niche shows gets a huge audience to sustain the streaming service and create its exclusivity, and I don't really see that happening.

I like that Netflix has a platform for these unique original shows, but I just don't see it as sustainable, especially if they only last a season or two.

This of course becomes more and more relevant as popular existing content like The Office gets spread off to the five winds of companies trying to build their own streaming service, and the huge white elephant of Disney starting Disney + that has the potential to dramatically change the atmosphere of streaming services and I'm not totally sure its for the best.

My point? I like the show Maniac. It's not perfect, its not going to be the next Stranger Things or touchstone series of Netflix, but I'm glad they have a platform to do so. I just don't know how sustainable that platform will be when they lose the comfort food of The Office, and Friends, and can't get enough original content that reaches a wide audience.

But let me know if I'm not the only one who has seen this series! What did you think of Maniac? Comment and Discuss below! You can send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as any requests for films or TV shows I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!