A few years ago, you could not move for an on-screen chef. It made sense: sweary men, combustible kitchens, wounded egos, glistening biceps, well-tailored work clothes, sharp knives, sharper words, drugs, drink, overcooked drama. With that obsession on the back burner (we’re between seasons of The Bear, anyway), Hollywood has a new, more introspective subject: itself. A slew of recent shows, from ill-fated The Franchise to the more robust Hacks, have tried to pin down some aspect of the industry in order to reveal how the sausage is made (hint: usually pretty ugly). So in rolls Apple’s ten-part comedy series The Studio, which holds up an outrageously gaudy, grotesquely expensive mirror to the studio system and presents the mind-altering revelation of “oooh, shiny!”
Seth Rogen plays Matt Remick, the just-appointed president of Continental Studios. Remick has built his career off an insanely popular superhero franchise but harbours more artistic yearnings: why can’t they make a film which makes a billion dollars and also bag some Oscar nominations? You guys remember Barbie, right? We can totally make another Barbie! So begins a quest to make a film about the brand of flavoured drink Kool-Aid. (I am certain I was not alone in noting this at the time, and I do not think The Studio was inspired by my piece, but I must take this opportunity to point out I foresaw this exact circumstance after watching Greta Gerwig’s branding exercise/magnum opus). Helping Remick out on his desperate and doomed venture is marketing honcho Maya (Kathryn Hahn, essential to this series), assistant turned producer Quinn (Chase Sui Wonders), and right-hand man Sal (Ike Barinholtz). Catherine O’Hara plays outgoing studio head Patty, and steals just about every scene that is fortunate enough to feature her.
This does not even begin to touch on the list of guest stars which includes, among many many others, Zoe Kravitz, Charlize Theron, Anthony Mackie, Bryan Cranston, Olivia Wilde, Ron Howard and Paul Dano. They play themselves, which is novel, and poke fun—okay too strong: prod very, very gently with kid gloves—at their personas. I found this about as funny as your average SNL sketch, where I am usually thinking, “It’s so cool that they got Timmy Chalamet to dress up like Troye Sivan” rather than, say, laughing at actual jokes. (I like laughing at jokes, sue me!) To be fair, some of the starry set-ups are more successful than others. It is kinda funny that Martin Scorsese wants to make a movie about the Jonestown massacre (a mass murder which, Remick realises with horror, relied on Kool-Aid), but it is certainly not funny enough to fill out an episode. However watching Remick piss off Sarah Polley as the Oscar-winning director films a “oner” of Greta Lee smoking a joint is fairly irresistible.
That is the theme of the show, by the way. Watching Remick fail upwards through film sets and the Golden Globes and mindless movie-planning meetings. Not a bad premise, and Rogen has the scruffy charm to sell the role, and The Studio never commits the same sin of its dim-witted characters: treating the audience like complete idiots. The show assumes a not insignificant amount of knowledge about Hollywood and its various rings of hell, which helps ground some of Remick’s evermore preposterous challenges. But as the series continues, it becomes increasingly obvious that it has very little to say. Did you know it is hard to shoot a film? Did you know movie stars can be sensitive little fuckers? Did you know there are pressures on studios at a time where big budgets often lead to even bigger flops? The closest The Studio comes to saying anything risqué about the industry is an episode about casting in which the executives attempt to appeal to the widest possible audience without ever becoming problematic. It is also, tellingly, the funniest episode.
Each 30-minute episode is shot with considerable verve by Rogen and Evan Goldberg: the camera jumps from famous face to famous face, as we follow them through crowded studio lots or pleasingly Golden Age shoot locations. Increasingly, I found myself not transported by the action but craving something more mundane. What does it look like when Remick gets home? When was the last time he went on a bad date? Some of those details are played down on purpose—he has sacrificed himself to work, as a phone call with his mother makes clear—but the overall effect is exhausting rather than entertaining.
The Studio is available to stream on Apple TV+ from 26 March
