Man, it’s wild that “The Curse,” the new Showtime series from Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder, and Benny Safdie, got made. And or, maybe another way to say it is, if/when you package three immense talents and names like the aforementioned actor, writer/director, comedian, and filmmaker, you can really go for broke and push the envelope on the medium and what the audience can withstand and bear (more of this, please!)
READ MORE: ‘The Curse’: Emma Stone & Nathan Fielder Interrogate Altruistic White Privilege In Hilariously Cringe & Excruciating Series
That’s the crux of “The Curse,” a hilariously uncomfortable limited series on Showtime/Paramount+ that debuted in November and we named one of the best shows of 2023.
The proposition of “The Curse” is layered and expansive. On the surface, it’s a show about a newlywed couple (Stone and Fielder) trying to put on a new HGTV show about eco-conscious housing. Its complications are the ethically dubious TV producer (Benny Safdie) and a curse that a child purportedly puts on the husband that really should just be something a child says but instead begins to haunt and erode the couple’s sense of trust in each other and their questionable sense of purpose.
But it’s also a deep, weird, complex, and hysterically cringe show—Fielder, known for the discomfiting “The Rehearsal” among other uncomfortably bizarre shows, is the king of cringe, so this makes a lot of sense. It tackles ideas of privilege, white saviors, self-delusional identities, and the phoniness that can come with those who think they are doing philanthropical do-good work that’s actually self-serving. It’s a mask-breaking, shatter-the-illusion-in-the-mirror show, and it’s brilliant.
Here’s the synopsis:
Whitney and Asher Siegel are a newlywed couple struggling to bring their vision for eco-conscious housing to the small community of Española, New Mexico. But their efforts are complicated when an eccentrically flawed reality TV producer, Dougie, sees an opportunity in their story. As the series unfolds, the couple find themselves caught in a mysterious web of ethical and moral gray zones – all while trying to keep their relationship afloat.
But to get to the gist of it, “The Curse” has a show within a show conceit. Stone and Fielder’s characters are making an HGTV show and call “Fliplanthropy,” a clever twist of flipping homes for profit, but through the guise of philanthropy (a suspect contradiction that the show obviously interrogates harshly).
Wisely, as the show continues on Showtime/Paramount, Safdie, Fielder, and Stone have released a “pilot” for “Fliplanthropy,” and of course, it’s not the show itself, but the show, the superficial characters (who think they are deeply honorable) are making in the series, seen for the first time. It’s wickedly clever stuff (like the show itself). Watch the pilot ep for “Fliplanthropy” below.