Relationships Talk

An Art of Noise song blares out of a Volvo while Bruce, a mulleted Long Islander, reads a marriage advice book and waits for his wife Linda to finish up at the DMV. Linda isn’t there to file a dangerous driver complaint; though she looks like a busybody housewife, she’s slyly grabbing an address she shouldn’t really have so that her and Bruce can end up at their ultimate destination: Furs by Sebastian. There, Bruce distracts a shopkeeper so that Linda can set a plan into motion: She’s here to rescue a lemur. Things escalate. There are fake guns involved. There are real guns, too. What lemur could be worth all this trouble?

Maniac, the most high-profile project helmed by auteur-ish director Cary Fukunaga since his True Detective days, opens up in a weird world. It’s like ours, but just far enough down a hellish timeline to be called dystopian. Rent can cost as much as 87 percent of one’s income; friends themselves are available to be rented; you can subsidize your income by listening to a real person read ads out loud. When we meet Owen (Jonah Hill) and Annie (Emma Stone) before they participate in a dubious clinical trial meant to help them work through their bad feelings, it isn’t long before we’re told what makes them tick. Owen, diagnosed with schizophrenia, has trouble determining what is real — he often sees a doppelganger of his brother Jed, who gives him missions and cryptic messages. Annie is hellbent on getting access to the “A” drug being tested in the trial, which she has been using recreationally, in order to deal with the trauma of losing a loved one. But considering the world they live in, their anxieties almost need no explanation. They exist here; something must be wrong with them.

Nonetheless, the show insists on explaining. We’re told which life event causes Annie’s spiral; we’re given tidy explanations of what Owen sees; we’re taken directly into the minds of the characters when they take the pills they hope will clear out their emotional issues and leave them healthy. The lemur caper, for example, which initially appeared to be a dead mother giving a final gift to her daughter, is actually an elaborate final joke played by a bitter woman, with an additional twist. The recipient of said lemur is Annie’s subconscious representation of the mother of the driver who killed her sister… which feels like a satisfying twist until you realise that the further revelation is that Annie wishes her sister had never been killed, which you might have guessed anyways.

The show’s main conceit are these glimpses into the subconscious, which are framed like a variety show. In addition to the lemur heist, there’s a ‘40s seance attended by a secret society of prestiged illusionists and thieves, and a crime family drama set in early ’90s California, each lush with its own aesthetic and alive with an ensemble of Owen and Annie’s real-world acquaintances playing over-the-top characters in over-the-top scenarios. They don’t do much to sketch out Owen’s dreary antipathy or Annie’s sharp antagonism, but they’re still fun — Hill is in his element impersonating a whimsical, vaguely European man in an espionage setting, and Stone is incredibly charming as a surly elf guide in a deep fantasy setting. But the show never quite pays dividends for all of the tonal whiplash it imposes through these extravagant asides. These moments feel more like a demo reel for the actors, rather than a substantial exploration of their characters.

As a result, the show lacks an anchor for the trippiest moments to really rip the viewer out of reality. I felt more like I was gently floating through the strange, surreal mindscapes — a nice enough feeling, but seemingly not the intention of the ambitiously designed, conspicuously impressive program. There’s a recurring question that Maniac asks through Owen: “Is this real?” The order in which things are laid out leaves the viewer with a strong sense of “Yeah, probably,” or “No, probably not.” Everything, even in the subconscious, made a level of sense.

Instead, characters constantly admit things to themselves that even dull-eyed viewers could see from episodes back. This is “television,” but wrapped in the guise of prestige viewing, the storytelling feels thin. There are honest, accurate depictions of how the human mind responds to grief via magical thinking that take entire episodes to reach very basic emotional conclusions. They’re a lot of fun at times, but even the novelty of Stone and Hill getting way into these alter egos fades quickly as the side stories drag on for far longer than necessary.

The length of the show — 10 episodes in all — becomes one of its weaknesses; by the time a character actually says, at one point, “Our brains are just computers,” you want to pick up your own computer and throw it out the window. There are some compelling examinations of depression, dysfunction, and pseudo-psychology to be found, but a lot of the show’s biggest concepts are spoon fed. Even the camp and utter silliness of the show — which is genuinely funny at times, as executed through the sterling character work of Justin Theroux, Sonoya Mizuno, and Sally Field (a particular highlight) — is dragged down by the heavy handed idea-peddling and the muddled arc of Owen and Annie’s growth.

As much as the show leans on blink-and-you’ll-miss-it subtlety, there’s not as much of a reason to go back and examine as the shows it’s being compared to. Any questions that might arise are, for the most part, neatly addressed before they become fully realized. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for example, better balances its disparate tones and has characters that are at least marginally compelling on their own. Inception actually sustains the mystery of what’s real upon first watch instead of squandering it early, and it doesn’t veer too far out of its way to provide reasons for the things that happen in the subconscious. They don’t try to appease the audience with a “satisfying” ending — after the sheer amount of manufactured tension in Maniac, its simple and earnest final moments feel like a cop-out at best.

In interviews, Fukunaga has spoken frankly about the role that Netflix’s algorithms played in the creative process, guiding him to make decisions based on what he thought the audience would prefer. But anyone who’s taken prescription pills, as Owen and Annie do, knows that science doesn’t have all the answers.

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) — A call into the “Smiley Morning Show” for marriage advice turning into a life-saving milestone for a Plainfield man. He’s now sharing a powerful message about how the concern of strangers can save a life.

Brett Wrin is in a very different place today than he was a year ago.

Dealing with depression and trouble in his marriage, he called into The Smiley Morning Show on WZPL on a whim.

“I called for marriage advice. Probably the stupidest thing anybody can do is to call a radio station for marriage advice.” Wrin said. “It was really to see if I should continue to work on this relationship or if I should see other people.”

Wrin said he received a lot of negative feedback on the air and on-line.

“I am usually good with negative feedback, but that day, with the whole depression kind of just building up, I just decided that it was the time.” Wrin said.

He decided he would take his life.

“After I got off the radio I was in the driveway to my house, and I went inside I was upset, ” he said. “I tweeted the radio station. People will say for attention. Maybe, I don’t know. I was looking for more help so I tweeted them saying I did what I did.”

By that time, Wrin had taken an overdose of one of his depression medications. He says he turned his music up and waited for the end. But thankfully, the Smiley morning crew saw his tweet.

Nikki Reed said the radio team worried.

“A tweet from him first that was kind of like none of it matters now and mentioned taking some pills, and then there was another tweet that it should be over soon,” she said. “I remember feeling very panicked. So Toni, Will and I ran over to our program director and we said, ‘Hey this is going on. We don’t know if it’s true or not true, but we are worried.'”

The radio crew were able to doing some quick investigating and narrowed down Wrin’s last name and the town he lived in from social media and called 9-1-1.

The medicine was already starting to take effect when police arrived.

“Police were knocking on the door. At that point I struggled to get up and I went to the door. I fell over,” Wrin said. “Police were there. They called an ambulance and the ambulance took me to hospital.”

After a few days in the hospital, Wrin recovered. That’s also when he learned that it was the Smiley morning crew who saw his tweets and likely saved his life.

“I am not embarrassed by it. Some people are I am not embarrassed, it happens it’s life,” Wrin told Eyewitness News. “I am hoping that people will know that a random group of people from a radio station took the time out of their day to make sure I stayed a live. People, no matter who you are, if you think you don’t have anybody, you have somebody standing in your corner.”

Earlier this month, Wrin met the Smiley crew and thank them in person for saving his life a year ago.

“I am so happy for him I am so proud of the work he has done and his family and how much better everything is. I think so many people don’t see the end of the rainbow, they don’t understand it can get so much better and all you need to do is keep working at it and he’s done a great job, and he is a wonderful example of how it can always get better,” Reed said. “We made a phone call, we were lucky enough that he reached out to somebody, even if it was just Twitter but I think that is always the most important part if somebody is saying something you just have to listen to them and hear what they say.

Wrin is happy they were listening and said, “If they didn’t do what they did, I wouldn’t have a son, my daughter would be fatherless and my wife would be a widow. It’s really hard to put into words to show your appreciation to people that care for you, that you’ve never met.”

Wrin made a video documenting his journey and uploaded it to YouTube.

DEAR ABBY: My best friend and I are middle-aged women. Throughout our long friendship, I have been one of the few people in her life who was there for her as she dealt with boyfriend problems, elderly parents, serious illnesses, deaths, etc.

She became engaged for the first time recently, and asked me to go out of town with her to check out a potential wedding venue. While we were there, she looked away (wouldn’t even look me in the eye) and announced that only her sister (with whom she doesn’t get along) would be in her wedding party.

Although I was deeply disappointed, I said nothing. I was more disappointed about the way she made the announcement.

Since then, she has asked for my advice on everything from invitations to wedding etiquette, etc., instead of asking her sister, who lives out of state. At this point, I just want to be a guest at the wedding and enjoy seeing her get married. How do I bow out of this untitled role she has given me?

– Bowing out in the West

DEAR BOWING OUT: If your friend had felt good about making the announcement, she wouldn’t have hesitated to look you in the eye. I suspect that she included her sister – who she doesn’t get along with – in her wedding party because of pressure from relatives.

Because you feel her questions should more appropriately be answered by the sister, tell your friend – as kindly as possible – she should be asking her maid of honor, who is “only a phone call away.”

Revisiting first love

DEAR ABBY: I fell in love with my first crush 30 years ago. We both felt the same way, but because I was six years younger than him, my parents didn’t approve. We lost contact, and over the years, I would sometimes wonder what had happened to him. Last week his cousin found me on Facebook, and I was able to video call him. We were filled with emotion and realized our feelings haven’t changed.

We both have families. I’m divorced with two young adults. He’s married with three young adults. I don’t want to cause him any problems, and yet, I’m willing to let it play out and see what happens. All I want is just to see him again, but I’m afraid of what will happen. Please tell me what to do!

– Full of emotions

DEAR FULL OF EMOTIONS: The problem with making important decisions when we are “full of emotions” is they’re usually impulsive and the wrong choice. Consider this: You and this man are adults with responsibilities to others. If you see him and he still feels the same as you stated, it may be the start of an affair and the end of his marriage.

If it’s an affair, you will be his side dish and unable to form a meaningful relationship with anyone else for years. If divorce is involved, his wife and children will be collateral damage. Because I’m not sure you have the strength to keep your distance if you meet him, ask him to include his wife and family when you do, and bring along your children.