The off-putting comedy of Tim Robinson
His latest is HBO’s “The Chair Company.” Plus some thoughts about English vs. subtitles
Actors like Tim Robinson usually show up in supporting roles. And yet for nearly the past decade, he has been a leading man. Granted, an unusual leading man.
I always like when an actor finds a way to subvert the rigid rules of Hollywood dictating who gets to star and who shall remain a character actor.
Robinson is a great case study, because he’s found a specific lane that decision-makers seem willing to back. He looks like someone who might sell insurance, which is part of the joke; on screen, his regular guy appearance suggests a deceptively normal exterior — boring, even — before the mask slips and the character’s deeply maladjusted and self-sabotaging inner truth emerges.
Robinson is fascinated by inappropriate responses to life's annoyances and humiliations, and you either like his exploration of this behavior or you don’t.
I started off really liking Robinson’s strange instincts, which he honed on stage in Chicago performing sketch and improv (that’s where I first saw him) before landing a spot in the cast on “Saturday Night Live” in 2012. He was, perhaps, a little too weird for Lorne Michaels’ taste, and he was thereafter shifted to a lower profile writing role.
But he was back on camera a year after leaving “SNL” in Comedy Central’s “Detroiters.” Netflix’s sketch comedy entry “I Think You Should Leave” came next, followed by last year’s cringe comedy feature film with Paul Rudd, “Friendship.”
His latest is an absurdist comedy series (would he make any other kind?) for HBO called “The Chair Company,” playing a mid-level manager who is — surprise! — deeply maladjusted and self-sabotaging. And I’m starting to wonder if Robinson and co-creator Zach Kanin (with whom he also created the previous shows) have reached a ceiling with this trope.
The three seasons of “I Think You Should Leave” are wonderfully brief exercises in social anxiety run amok. Writing about the show in 2019 when it first premiered, I said that Robinson’s comedic sensibility is best described as “gleefully profane escalation: An unremarkable — or just mildly awkward scenario — is pushed to its most ridiculous limits.” He has a knack for burrowing into the psyches of frustrated white men who could benefit from some self-reflection, but take their frustrations out on the people around them instead. His “Detroiters” character was probably his sweetest and least tantrum-y; when so inclined, he can shed the faux-guileless routine of his dweeby Travis Bickle tendencies and tap into a side of himself that’s almost golden retriever-esque.
But a generalized discomfort with himself — of a man grimacing through a barrage of perceived slights — is the undercurrent in most of his roles. That’s his thing. His brand, if you will. And I’m wondering why I now find this premise so unappealing.
As a demographic, the Tim Robinsons of the world are the least at risk from all kinds of dangerous fascist forces of the moment. I “get” the humor in fetishizing the petty and childish delusions of the men he plays. He’s absolutely making fun of these characters and their pointless grievances! But he’s also elevating and centering those grievances. Maybe that’s the issue for me.
But I know plenty of people feel otherwise, and if that’s you, HBO’s “The Chair Company” beckons. I wish I had more to say about it, but it just doesn’t do anything for me.
Language games
Switching gears entirely …
Watching Stephen Frears' 1988 version of "Dangerous Liaisons" which is set in Paris but everyone speaks American-accented English: Sure, why not!
Watching a new reboot of "Maigret" on PBS, which is set in Paris but everyone speaks British-accented English: wtf???
I genuinely couldn't tell you why one bothers me and the other doesn't, except that “Dangerous Liaisons” is an excellent film, with a script by Christopher Hampton, who understands the power of a witty line but also the wildly destructive nature of bored, gossipy rich people.
This newest, pandering reboot of “Maigret,” on the other hand, is dull. That’s really the issue, I think.
The Maigret police detective novels by Georges Simenon, first published in 1931 and continued to come out through the early 70s, have been adapted to the screen several times over. But the current incarnation (which takes place in the present and transforms the title character into someone younger, more brooding and supposedly hunky) does nothing with its Paris setting. So if everyone sounds like they’re from England anyway … well, why not just set it in Cornwall instead of France?
There are plenty of other shows and films that have made the same choice as the two aforementioned titles. Someone on BlueSky said they were watching 2017’s “Tulip Fever,” which is set in 16th century Amsterdam, “and everyone speaks in an East London accent, except for Christoph Waltz.”
There’s the 2019 TV drama “Chernobyl,” which is wall-to-wall British accents despite the Ukraine setting, but that didn’t stop it from winning 10 Emmys.
Perhaps most memorably (if you’re old!), there’s the 1990 action-thriller “The Hunt For Red October,” which begins with its Soviet characters speaking Russian, only to shift to English early on with the aid of an artful push-in. It’s a fascinating way to communicate to the audience: “OK, we just established these characters are Russian, but for the sake of ensuring this big popcorn movie plays with a wide audience, the cast will speak English from here on out.” I respect that the movie at least acknowledges what it’s doing!
“Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films,” said Bong Joon Ho when he won the Oscar for “Parasite,” but studio executives don’t buy it, so here we are. English-language dubs are available on Netflix for this very reason — enough people prefer them to subtitles — but it’s a weird compromise; the words you’re hearing are so obviously not those of the actors that it creates an uncanny valley effect.
Here’s the thing I’ve learned about watching anything with subtitles: You can not be even just a little bit tired, otherwise you can’t concentrate. A local public television station in Chicago used to carry MHz, which specializes in international programming from Europe. (MHz also has a subscription streaming platform called MHz Choice, for anyone interested.) That’s where I stumbled upon a new-to-me Danish series that premiered in 2000 called “Unit One” (the original title is “Rejseholdet”) starring a young and wonderfully greasy Mads Mikkelson, who is part of a mobile team of police investigators — a quasi-equivalent of the FBI — who travel all over Denmark solving crime out of an office in tractor trailer. Yep, a long-haul truck. It’s actually quite roomy! It’s a hilarious setup, and while show itself is not hilarious, it’s a solid case-of-the-week series, which, as a genre, is generally easy viewing.
But if I was even the tiniest bit tired when I turned it on, no dice. Wasn’t happening. (Looks like you can watch the first episode for free here.) You can’t multi-task and, say, cook while you’re watching, either. So you just pick your spots more carefully, that’s all.
But for me, that’s true of anything that has storytelling complexity and requires focus.
And conversely, it’s why I suspect reality TV is so popular, because it offers such a low barrier to entry. You don’t have to strain to see a damn thing because the shows are brightly lit. And in terms of structure and story, they’re dumbed down to the point that they’re easy to follow even when your brain is fuzzy and exhausted after a long day.
On an old episode of “Beavis and Butthead,” they’re watching something with subtitles and one of them says to the other: “If I wanted to read, I’d go to school.” I laughed! But also, when you’re tired, that is kind of how it feels. You can’t just zone out, and that’s fine! Like I said, it’s all about picking your spots.
Finally, a celebrity pushes back on AI
For the Tribune this week, I talked with Nick Offerman about his new book and an upcoming Netflix miniseries about the assassination of a U.S. president.
He discussed, among other things, his talent for growing his own whiskers when the role calls for it (“Ariana Grande can sing like an angel; for me, it’s growing facial hair”).
But maybe most strikingly, at a time when so many in Hollywood are saying AI is a fait accompli, Offerman is one of the few celebrities I've seen give a full throated "I think the fuck not,” which he does in the preface to his new book. He encourages things like thinking and problem-solving!
Instead of falling into the trap of getting online and being the one billionth person to give my hot take on the state of affairs, I recognize the futility of that. And I recognize the delight that the billionaires and corporations take in all of us being distracted with online fist-shaking. My solution, instead, is to write a book that encourages positivity, that encourages empathy, and in this case, it’s encouraging people to keep the reins of your life in your own hands and don’t allow corporations to decide what happens with all of our natural resources. That’s what it comes down to: By lazily handing over this agency to AI or whoever is running the algorithm, then you’re saying “I don’t care what you’re doing with the oil, or the ocean or the fish or the soil. Or the people.” I think it’s incumbent upon us as citizens of this nation and this planet to always give a (expletive) about what is happening to all of those resources.
I’m not a literally religious person, but that’s where my spirituality lies. I think we’re responsible to one another — and to the creation — to care for it, if for no other reason than to be a good ancestor to the generations coming after this.
You can read the full interview here.