‘Nobody wants this’: When the sex podcaster met the man of God

Although there is so much talk about brands and franchises lately, stars still matter. Many will approach ‘Nobody wants this’ Attracted by the prominence of Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, two former youth stars (they became known, respectively, in ‘Veronica Mars’ and ‘OC’) who are extending their careers with something more than mere dignity. The first one shone above all in ‘The good place’, with which ‘Nobody wants this’ shares philosophical will. The second has shown himself to be something more than the perfect good guy: he was a sexual predator in ‘Promising Young Woman’ and combined charm with a certain cynicism as the playboy friend of Jesse Eisenberg and Lizzy Caplan in ‘Fleishman is in trouble’.

Both bring out all their artillery charm, charisma, smiles, beauty and intelligence In ‘Nobody Wants This’, the umpteenth demonstration that the most solid romantic comedies are released on television today. Bell is Joanne, an agnostic woman who shares her romantic-sexual misadventures with all of humanity on the podcast she records with her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe, Roy Connor’s trophy wife in ‘Succession’), quite fed up, by the way, with hearing Joanne point out flaws in good guys. Joanne prefers the difficult even if it is doomed to disaster. And then comes Noah (Adam Brody), who doesn’t seem like a bad guy and with whom, in addition, everything is easy. The first problem: this man has just broken up with his long-time girlfriend, that is, he is in a romantic grey area where Joanne does not want to step in. But there is something even more complicated.A rabbi and a gentile don’t count“Noah says. “We intend to repopulate ourselves.”

The premise may remind us of ‘More than friends’, that film from the beginning of the century in which Jenna Elfman played a woman torn between a rabbi (Ben Stiller) and a priest (Edward Norton, also the film’s director), both of whom were her childhood friends. Again, theThe religious question puts stones in a romancejust as she does somewhat less with Fleabag and its handsome priest. But the creator of the series, Erin Foster (‘The new normal’), has not had to go to any video store or streaming catalogue in search of inspiration: is based here on his own experience with her husband, who is not a rabbi, but is Jewish, and who wanted to go up to the altar with a Jewish woman.

Perhaps that is why the series exudes this emotional truth. Without reaching great levels of thematic complexity or dramatic depth (this is still escapism before going to sleep), it manages to make us believe at times that we are closely observing, without permission, the rapprochement between two real people, people of flesh and blood who lives in this world, although few of us here have Noah’s kitchen; that is more the territory of Nancy Meyers’ cinema. Around them orbit secondary characters who are not insignificant, such as Joanne’s sarcastic sister or Noah’s goofy and endearing brother (a Timothy Simons light years away from the despised Jonah Ryan of ‘Veep’).

The evolution of romance is rapidbut there is time for an interesting conversation about privacy and transparency: what is actually more useful? “My parents value privacy very much,” says Noah. “They are Russian Jews, they come from the Soviet Union. There, if you said your name out loud, it could be dangerous to sound Jewish.” To which Joanne replies that nowadays it is not dangerous to open up, as she herself tries to do on her podcast for her own and others’ catharsis.

Steven Levitan (co-creator of ‘Modern Family’) serves as co-executive producer, but, save for a rushed first episode, Here we are not looking for the gag per minute, but rather more relaxed rhythms and a more casual humor.. You get the feeling that you’re watching a respectable independent film. In fact, its directors come from that environment, people of the caliber of Greg Mottola, Karen Maine or Hannah Fidell, who particularly shines with that inspired fourth episode about a trip to a sex shop in search of a powerful vibrator… for work.