KARLSON & LUSCHER WOULD UNDERSTAND

 

My last article referencing the Amazon flick Holland, and how ill-suited I thought Nicole Kidman’s male leads were, reminded me of a Cole Porter song. It was sung by the character Ninotchka, the 1957 communist commissar, played by Cyd Charisse in the MGM movie, Silk Stockings. The lyric, in a tune all about the physical attraction between a man and a woman, boiled down to Ninotchka’s no-nonsense way of thinking:

“It’s a chemical reaction… that’s all.”

Chemistry between two would-be sexual partners… on and off screen. Chemistry between fictional colleagues such as Cagney and Lacey, the actors who played those parts (Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly) chemistry, between an actor and a role, between a performer and the audience. Such series as Homeland, with the incredible Claire Danes, and Sutton Foster’s tour de force in Younger (both on HULU and recently reviewed here) are great examples of on-screen chemistry.

On-screen chemistry is all but undefinable. Not at all something one can readily predict. I decided to look beyond the sure-fire charisma of Sutton and Danes, Gless and Daly, and… having been vaguely aware of earlier work by Darren Star, the Younger showrunner (Sex and the City, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210) I turned to Google to see what Mr. Star had done since Younger ended after a seven-year run. Emily in Paris was the answer.

Even though Emily is in Paris, with a bit of Chicago thrown in, and Younger was mostly Brooklyn and Manhattan, the two shows share a similar visual style, especially in the establishing of locale and the setting of the tempo for the episodes. They also have, along with Mr. Star’s Sex and the City, the in-common theme of young women… on the make… in a tough work environment. What the shows do not share is the same leading lady. And there’s the rub.

Lily Collins plays the Emily in The City of Light and does not, in my view, have that certain chemical something. Not with the audience, not with the character she plays, nor with any of her fellow actors. Her filmography indicates that she works plenty and many of her roles have been as the lead. I cannot testify to remembering her in any of the listed films/TV shows in her oeuvre; as for Emily in Paris, I can flatly affirm that Sutton Foster she ain’t.

Carrying the weight of a show is not something Ms. Collins is really up to… at least not yet. Darren Star might have seen that in auditions and decided to “settle.” Maybe he doesn’t agree. Since all of this is hard to define, we are left to guess.

I know, I know, I am late to the game on Emily in Paris, but for those of you who have thought about the show but have yet to push the Netflix button for streaming and want my viewpoint …. FUGGETTABOUTIT.

It was my fascination with Sutton Foster… who oozes star quality (a euphemism for chemistry) that led me to the series Bunheads on Disney. It was a bonus to discover that this was a Palladino collaboration that preceded, by five years, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Talk about chemistry.

Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino, writers, directors, producers: I have never met either of them as they came along in the generation of TV creators more than a dozen years behind me, but there is no question as to their credentials in the TV industry or in the category of great chemistry.

There are few television shows… ever… that can compare with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The style, wit and acting ensemble of that series put it at the head of any class. It is on Amazon Prime and is a “must see.”

Bunheads, which I reviewed in an earlier column and is now on Hulu, got me to another show, the one that first brought fame and fortune to the family Palladino. That show is The Gilmore Girls, a flat-out terrific series of the not-so-recent past. It is now on Hulu and Netflix.

Don’t say it; I know I am not Columbus discovering America here. The Gilmore Girls was a bona fide hit from 2000 through 2007, during which time I was just sort of settling into my Island paradise, far away from Hollywood, generally not paying a whole bunch of attention to shows or show business.

I had yet to have my humongous TV screen installed, nor had I come to the place where I could concede someone else’s abilities to match my own in the arena of feminist iconry. Afterall, my creds were Cagney & Lacey, The Trials of Rosie O’Neill, and Christy (now all streaming on Amazon Prime).

The reality may well be, had I not gotten there ten to fifteen years before the Palladinos, I might have had to admit to being topped as the darling of the women’s movement by virtue of their presentations of The Gilmore Girls, Bunheads, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Grab that moment of self-effacement while you can. It is rare and will not last long.

As in everything I have seen of the Palladino’s there is outstanding writing and great synergy between the camera work and the staging of the actors. The shows have wit as well as wisdom; the pace of the dialogue and the style and quality of the performances are admirable. All this, and yet, I was feeling that somewhere at the heart of this excellence there was a flaw.

It was at this point in the writing of this article where I considered returning to my chemistry “theme” at the risk of getting into great trouble with the zealots of Stars Hollow, who are reportedly legion and every bit as loyal to the Palladino show about a Mom and her teenage daughter, as were the fans of Cagney & Lacey.

My critical focus was on Lauren Graham who plays the daughter of Kelly Bishop (Bunheads) and the mother of Alexis Bledel (The Handmaid’s Tale). Ms. Graham is a terrific comedic actor who can deliver a line that even the Palladinos should appreciate. She is not bad looking and has a killer body, yet something was nagging at me. It was, for me, something chemical that was lacking. Was I being fair, or was it simply the absence of my newfound crush, Sutton Foster, that I was missing?

My judgment came into question. Could I have been influenced by the note I got from Tyne Daly, champion of a plethora of lost causes, who was offended by my earlier remarks about Nicole Kidman’s leading man in Holland? There was also the fact that Gilmore Girls is so good… and Ms. Graham is so good… that, just perhaps, I had gone off a rail here.

Somewhere around episode 16, I caved. Something chemical was at long last going on and I found that Lauren Graham was, in fact, more than enough. She had won over even my cold, cold heart. I had spotted it faster with Claire Danes, Sutton Foster, Sharon Gless, and Tyne Daly, but just past the mid-way point in season one of The Gilmore Girls that certain something was (finally) there.

It was a chemical reaction… that’s all.

 

Barney Rosenzweig