TV review: I can’t figure Maniac out - all I know is I’m still watching
Gabriel Byrne and Jonah Hill in Maniac
I still don’t know what to make of (Netflix.) Four episodes in to this 10-parter and I can’t figure out if it’s the future of television or some kind of nerdy prank. All I know is I’m still watching.
The story, in so much as it exists, is as follows. Annie (Emma Stone) and Owen (Jonah Hill) are subjects in a drug trial, carried out by what looks like a Japanese company that arrived straight out of a cartoon. The trial involves taking a pill that recreates the most traumatic episode in your life, followed by another pill that ‘cures’ this in some way. The doctors in charge of the trial have on-trend hairstyles that would remind your of , and I think they sleep in a chest of drawers . The clothes suggest the action is taking place in the 21 st century, while clunky computers suggest we are somewhere around 1983. It’s disconcerting, in a very obvious way.
