Uncoupled Review: Brilliant Performance Of Its Lead Actor And An Extremely Close-Knit Supporting Cast
Starring: Neil Patrick Harris, Tisha Campbell, Brooks Ashmanskas
Director: Jeffrey Richman, Darren Star
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Neil Patrick Harris returns to the world of sitcoms with this new Netflix TV series Uncoupled created by Darren Star – author of many successful shows such as Sex and the City, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and the most recent And Just Like That… and Emily in Paris – and Jeffrey Richman, producer of Modern Family. An undoubtedly encouraging premise for these 8 episodes of about half an hour each. Available to stream on July 29, Uncoupled sees our ex Barney Stinson as Michael, a 40-year-old with a successful career who, after 17 years of relationship, is suddenly left by his long-time boyfriend Colin, finding himself once again catapulted into the scary world of appointments in New York. Does a desperate single in the Big Apple seem a vaguely familiar idea?
As we’ll see in our Uncoupled review, the show feels, for better or for worse, a blast from the past and, perhaps, comes a little out of time. But Neil Patrick Harris, with his witty irony and the complicity of a close-knit cast, manages to revive the fortunes of the show, which turns out to be a real comfort TV series. Created and designed by Darren Star well-known screenwriter of Sex and the City and Beverly Hills 90210, Jeffrey Richman screenwriter of Modern Family, and produced by MTV Entertainment Studios, Uncoupled is a fun TV series that wants to try to lighten the tone while addressing rather sensitive and real issues related to the community LGBTQ+.
Uncoupled Review: The Story
The story is soon told Michael (Harris) after 17 years of relationship and coexistence with an older man, Colin (Tuc Watkins, who had previously played Bob in Desperate Housewives) throws a big surprise party for his partner’s 50th birthday, but he must announce that he wants to leave him and that he has already taken his stuff away from their house. Michael’s life falls apart and all the certainties he had believed in crumble. While trying to understand if returning with Colin is an option, he begins a journey of self-awareness and self-discovery, to understand what he wants from his life and above all to learn to feel good about himself before that with others and within a couple. Teaching that we should all treasure but that has already been gutted and told in many films and series, comic, romantic and otherwise, leaving very little space for originality and novelty in this new product. Eight episodes that entertain but that soon give way to something else once seen are easily forgotten.
Uncoupled Review and Analysis
Between one laugh and the other, between a shrewd and current joke and others less successful, Star stuffs the narration with various stereotypes and clichés: the eternal single friends one by bad luck and the other by choice ( Emerson Brooks and Brooks Ashmanskas ), the best friend and colleague visibly redone real estate agent ( Tisha Campbell-Martin already seen in All in the Family), some guest stars who try to embellish the narrative (the terrible wealthy newly divorced played by Marcia Gay Harden). All under the sky of a sparkling and glittering New York that is the backdrop to the infinite possibilities of today’s single scene (which however is so much the 90s), to speak of a wealthy class and not of homosexuals who are struggling to make it to the end of the month. The proof of all this lies in the epilogue and the season finale, the son of generalist TV, and the complement of the storylines dedicated to the various “secondary” characters, but nothing more. Nothing that leads to cheering for them and taking an interest in their stories if not, let’s face it, the name of the leading actor and the practically universal love for him.
It is hilarious to watch the newly single Michael grappling with a world of dating far from what he was used to while complaining about the new habits – especially in the sexual field – of the Millennials. Neil Patrick Harris can give his character irony and depth at the same time; we find ourselves smiling at his misadventures to empathizing with the discomfort that all of us, at least once in our lives, have experienced: striving to turn the page as soon as possible when, in reality, we would just like to go back to take back what we were removed.
A performance, that of the American actor, well supported by the rest of the main cast, with which effortless chemistry is established that makes the show a pleasant and reassuring pastime. Uncoupled does not make the mistake of focusing excessively on its protagonist but lets the relationships between him and the other characters evolve. Relationships that hopefully will be deepened even more within a second season that, from the final cliffhanger, promises to take place.
Speaking of actors, the cast of Uncoupled is exceptional: from the aforementioned Neil Patrick Harris, a Tisha Campbell all the actors do justice to their characters, indeed, it must be admitted that it is their performances that hold the series. Uncoupled in fact, it wants to take advantage of its lightness to make issues related to the LGBTQ + community, especially the gay one, but the writing of the series is a bit dated and “aged”. Darren Star’s hand is perceived the series is very reminiscent of Sex and the City, but not in a too positive sense.
The awareness of the issues that, however, are made is right exaggeratedly stereotyped: Uncoupled is full of clichés, which perhaps turn out to be a little too exaggerated, going to trivialize the plot of the story told. Stereotypes are also very strong regarding the New York lifestyle: rich characters living in luxurious apartments with windows on the skyline of the Manhattan chic all with brilliant and accomplished careers, exclusive parties and other elements that make it all a bit too far-fetched. Another stereotype on which part of the plot relies is that of “being left for someone younger”. A fear that, in principle, everyone has but that does not always turn out to be true. This, however, opens a reflective parenthesis that lasts throughout the series: finding yourself alone after a lasting and, apparently, stable relationship, is also a great way to find yourself start loving each other again, and analyze your mistakes.
Uncoupled Review: The Last Words
Uncoupled basically, it tells the end of love, a story of putting into play and contemplating one’s mistakes: which of us has never made a mistake? Who has never experienced the feeling of feeling wrong, misplaced, or misunderstood? And most importantly, who has never received such devastating disappointments that the whole world was collapsing on us? As you think about it, we remind you that Uncoupled will be available on Netflix from Friday 29 July 2022 and that you will find it among the other novelties of the catalog on this page.
