"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Thursday, November 8, 2018

The Book of Rannells: The Romanoffs: Season 1, Episode 5 – “Bright and High Circle” (2018)


Quick preface:  to my knowledge, this is the last new Andrew Rannells project until Black Monday hits in January (I am so here for that,) so we'll be settling back into The New Normal next week.

Andrew Rannells does some nice work in his episode of this anthology series, although the episode itself isn’t very good.  It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been better than the project that he’s in, but unfortunately, the situation here goes deeper than that for multiple reasons (premise spoilers, for both the series as a whole and this particular episode.)

Like I said, The Romanoffs is an anthology series, and each episode features a different cast of big-name actors playing separate characters.  From what I can tell, the only major connector is that each episode feature characters who claim to be Romanoff descendents; based on the episode I saw, that doesn’t actually factor into the story all that much, though.  “Bright and High Circle” follows Katherine (the supposed Romanoff) as she struggles with a plan of action upon learning that a complaint against her sons’ piano teacher has been brought to the police.  Knowing only that the police are making inquiries about potential “inappropriate misconduct” involving a minor, Katherine attempts to broach the subject with her three boys, wrestles with whether or not she should warn other parents (the police have told her not to say anything,) and tries to work out if she believes the piano teacher might have done what she thinks he may have been accused of doing.

On a basic level, this episode is quite unimpressive.  Despite a strong cast that includes Diane Lane as Katherine and Ron Livingston as her husband, pretty much everyone is saddle with shallowly-written characters who don’t talk all that much like human beings and who don’t seem to act with any kind of coherency.  Characters believe or don’t believe the non-specified accusations seemingly at random, changing their minds with little preamble.  There are places in the dialogue where someone will drop a line that’s just so conspicuously written that it pulls me right out of the proceedings, and the episode has a pervading sense of feeling stilted, with weird pauses and wonky pacing that stop the momentum at unexpected moments.

But beyond that, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that this is a story that focuses on sexual misconduct allegations (again, the characters are largely kept in the dark about what the accusations actually are, but sexual misconduct is the assumption Katherine and her husband run with) that involves a climactic speech about how “bearing false witness” is the “worst crime” a person could commit, “anyone can say anything,” and a person’s life “is ruined” by the hint of a false accuation.  It’s also written by Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, who was accused by a Mad Men writer that he made sexually-harassing comments to her at work and later fired her.

To be fair, there are some ways in which this doesn’t feel like a typical “#MeToo” story.  The fact that we don’t know what the allegations are is a big factor – rather than believing or disbelieving someone’s specific claim, it’s about characters parsing the likelihood of whether what they imagine the allegations might be could’ve happened, with lots of rumor and supposition and no one actually claiming anything.  There’s also the fact that the piano teacher is gay, and there’s something to be said about an eagerness to assume that a gay man’s intentions around the children he teaches are malicious.  With a much more careful hand and under different circumstances, this might’ve been a story you could compare to something like Doubt (although, of course, Doubt sits differently these days as well.)

However, whatever the mitigating factors that make this story seem potentially different than the ones that have filled the news for the past year, it’s impossible to ignore the cultural context in which they exist, or the elephant in the room that is the allegation against Weiner.  Even if the way things play out is different, it’s impossible not to see that grand speech about false accusations as Weiner using one of his characters as his mouthpiece, and that makes the episode leave me with really unpleasant feelings.  (Side note:  while I don’t know the specifics of the episode’s conception, the announcement of Rannells’s casting predated the allegation against Weiner coming out, so the script must have existed prior to that – prior to the Harvey Weinstein story that kickstarted the modern conversation about sexual harassment and assault, in fact.  But even if it was written “in a different time,” it’s coming out in this one, and that can’t be ignored – plus, I would need time-stamped visual evidence to believe the false-accusation speech wasn’t added in after the allegation broke about Weiner, and I’d still be skeptical.)

As such, obviously, I’m disappointed about Rannells’s involvement in this.  I get that he was already attached to the project, that none of these allegations (including the one against Weiner) had come out yet, and that this script probably read pretty differently in mid-2017.  But this isn’t a good association to have.  I read an interview with him where a PR person literally stepped in to shut down questions about Weiner, and while it’s understandable that Rannells wouldn’t want to wade into those waters, that’s kind of where he’s wound up being, and it’s a bummer to see him essentially plead the Fifth when someone asks about the very specific context in which we find this episode.

Rannells plays David, the piano teacher in question.  I should point out that one of the most interesting parts of the episode’s actual construction is that we don’t see David at all in the context of the police inquiry.  In fact, we largely don’t see Katherine interacting with him once she’s learned that a complaint was made against him.  Although he’s still very present in the episode, it’s almost entirely through flashbacks, as Katherine examines some of her past encounters with him and listens to stories brought forth by other characters.

Thinking about it, David is probably the most layered character in the piece.  He’s introduced as the beloved piano teacher, but right away (and continuing through the flashbacks,) we see different facets of him, both good and bad.  He nurtures the musical talent of Katherine’s middle son at a time when the boy is struggling and really needs someone to nurture him (though, of course, no amount of talent, as either a pianist or a teacher, would be “worth” potentially harming children or teenagers – it’s sad that I feel obligated to point that out, but, you know, Roman Polanski.)  He’s also a social climber who’s been known to exaggerate his own experiences to make himself seem more interesting/mysterious/impressive/pitiable/whatever, he may or may not milk others’ generosity, and he can be equal parts judgy and bitchy (none of which, though, has any real bearing on whether he did what Katherine thinks he might have been accused of.)  It’s an admittedly interesting character, a guy who definitely has good and bad parts to him, but without a clear answer as to whether or not he’s “a bad guy.”

It’s not a surprise that Rannells plays it well.  He isn’t entirely immune to the episode’s questionable overall quality, but he seems to have fewer stilted/forced moments, and he comes admirably close to selling a few “no human being would say that” lines.  By and large, his David feels like a person in a way that most of the other characters don’t, and while he gets more dimensions to work with, I feel like a lot of that is still down to Rannells’s performance.  He’s played plenty of characters who are deeply flawed and seem unlikable on the surface but are still fun and compelling to watch, and in a vacuum, David would fit that description.  Rannells nails the various aspects of David:  the easy charm that draws some people in, the cattiness that alienates others, the whiff of desperation that can make him seem suspect, and even the corny humor that’s not as successful as he thinks it is (there is an honest-to-God Jar-Jar Binks impression in here.)  Also, he looks surprisingly good fake-playing the piano.

I keep thinking about Doubt, and I feel like, if this were a few years ago and the writing was stronger, this might have come off as a fascinating character in an interesting story.  But the present climate makes this is much more fraught story to tell to begin with, the specific circumstances with Weiner makes it immediately feel like a bad idea, and the ultimate execution isn’t nearly up to the task that would’ve been required to try to pull this off.

Recommend?

In General – No.  Even if it weren’t for all the deeply uncomfortable stuff, the quality isn’t really enough to recommend it, but as it stands, very definitely not.

Andrew Rannells – I don’t know.  Rannells does do some really nice work here, but it’s a good performance within something pretty unpleasant.  I lean toward no.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements (including discussion of child sexual abuse,) language, and drinking.

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