Weekend Watch: The Afterparty, The Woman In The House
Lord and (mostly) Miller stage a murder, while Kristen Bell becomes suspicious of her neighbour
Image Credit: Apple TV+
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, two very different murder mysteries. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
Are there more reliable writers/directors/producers these days than Phil Lord and Chris Miller? Almost everything they’ve worked on has become a success and shines with a proven combination of laughter and heart. Apple TV+’s The Afterparty is no exception.
The brain-spawn of Miller (Lord wrote one episode and is a fellow executive producer, but this is driven more by his partner), The Afterparty takes place at the titular gathering following a high school’s 15-year reunion. It’s hosted at the luxurious home of Xavier (Dave Franco, giving solid smarm) a former nerd-turned pop star/actor who is as pompous as he is ridiculous. Several of his former classmates gather, and before the evening is out, Xavier is dead, seemingly shoved from a balcony onto an unforgiving stone beach below. And almost everyone has a motive for putting an end to the blowhard singer.
Among those who could have (figurative) blood on their hands are Sam Richardson’s charming, awkward Aniq, who has long harboured a flame for Zoe Chao’s Zoe, the night’s romantic target for Xavier. Her ex-husband Brett (Ike Barinholtz) is a jealous rageaholic, while Aniq’s pal Yasper (Ben Schwartz) used to play in a band with Xavier and hopes he’ll endorse his fledgling music career. Then there’s burnout Chelsea (Ilana Glazer), former social queen of the school now on boozy hard times. The two Jennifers are pregnant and smug, while spacey Indigo (Genevieve Angelson) is mostly trying to hawk healthcare remedies. Finally, we have Walt (Jamie Demetriou) who just wants to be noticed. Whodunnit? Finding that out falls to detectives Culp (John Early) and particularly Danner (Tiffany Haddish), who interviews each suspect in turn.
One of the real treats here is how each episode follows one character’s point of view and all employ different genres. The kick-off (longer than the others) blends several different styles while focusing on Aniq’s side of the story. Yasper’s is a hilarious musical. Brett’s is patterned after a Fast & Furious film. And Zoe’s is charmingly animated. More than that though, it’s also truly funny, employing some of the best comedy talent working today, and puts the time and effort into developing each character (even smaller roles, such as Kelvin Yu’s prank-happy Ned, married to one of the Jennifers, spring to life). It’s perhaps no surprise that Richardson and Chao are the heart of the show, while Schwartz goes all out to bring smiles even as he sings.
Apple smartly didn’t include the final episode, which will reveal the mystery, but if the wrap-up is anything as enjoyable as the journey towards it, The Afterparty will go down as one of the better shows of the year – and it’s only the end of January.
The first three episodes of The Afterparty are on Apple TV+ now. Five more will follow weekly. You can watch the first for free on YouTube.
Image Credit: Netflix
Spoofs and parodies are notoriously tough comedy genres to pull off well. You have your classics, including Airplane!, Top Secret! and the Naked Gun movies, and there are the try-hard wannabes that littered the late 1990s and early 2000s, mostly gag-crammed takes on other types of films that sacrificed plot and character for “remember this?” references.
On the big screen, the genre has mostly been quiet with little that’s memorable besides the vastly underrated Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping from the Lonely Island team. On the small, there’s been something of a renaissance recently, including The Afterparty (though it seeks to do more than simply parody its various genres) and Only Murders In The Building, which is in another league too. It’s unfortunate to report that for the most part, The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window barely raised a chuckle from me.
An attempt to poke fun at the mystery genre re-ignited (cinematically, at least, it’s still a healthy marketplace for novels) by Gone Girl and The Girl On The Train among others, The Woman In The House follows heartbroken Anna (Kristen Bell), whose daughter died and for whom every day is the same. She sits with her wine, staring out the window, watching life go by without her. But when a handsome neighbour moves in across the street, Anna starts to see a light at the end of the tunnel. That is until she witnesses a gruesome murder Or did she?
It’s a familiar setup for this sort of film: a protagonist who is also an unreliable narrator thanks to her mental state and frequent giant glasses of wine, a life they wish they had or could have again, and a crime that could be real or imagined. Yet while the series (it’s an eight-episode run on Netflix) has all those elements, what it lacks is, well, laughs. Though the show’s creators have stressed that they intended for it to work within the genre’s rules, the jokes that would key it in as a spoof simply don’t work. There is the odd giggle at Anna’s overcomplicated narration and one flashback to her husband’s tragic take-your-daughter-to-work day is so ridiculous it feels like an actual parody for a moment.
Still, even with the talents of Bell, who has proved she can make various styles work, and a competent supporting cast, The Woman In The House fails to generate much in the way of real tension and almost nothing of lasting comedy value. It’s an intriguing experiment, but one that doesn’t produce the right results.
The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window is on Netflix now.