Watching Uncoupled is Almost As Painful As Breaking Up
Neil Patrick Harris is nobody’s Carrie Bradshaw.
There are enough names attached to Netflix’s spiritual successor to Sex and the City that at first glance, despite knowing better, one dares to feel enthusiasm.
Sex and the City creator Darren Star and Modern Family producer Jeffrey Richman are the minds behind the streaming giant’s latest grasp at cultural relevance: A gay break-up dramedy that in theory, fits in nicely with Netflix’s core programming. Star and Richman, once revered for their craft, have produced a show that has no real sense of what its own genre is, nor what level of television viewing it offers.
The title sequence and insistent, bouncy theme music will have you expecting sidebars where the fourth wall is broken on a regular basis, and characters spill the tea with the audience in a faux-interview setting. The cinematography, on the other hand, wastes New York completely (which, to be fair, is a skill) and aspires to occupy a place that is HBO-adjacent — a place Netflix has never been able to find, although strictly visually speaking, Star’s other creation, Emily in Paris, comes close.
Neil Patrick Harris, known for his cartoonish depiction of a misogynist in NBC’s How I Met Your Mother, is still riding a kind of fame that I would posit, is incorrectly interpreted as faith in his acting abilities. Throngs of dude-bros still look up to his philandering character as a success story, and do not differentiate between their respect for a man who can lie his way into sleeping with women and respect for the actor. A late 80s child star who became a household name as teenage doctor Doogie Howser, Harris never quite shook off the over-the-top emoting that made him such a beloved actor at the time.
It is a significant leap for Harris to now decide to play a character a bit closer to home, depicting a middle-aged gay man navigating the perils of gay life in New York City. While the challenges he faces during a painful break-up are relatable, Harris himself is anything but. The far superior and empathetic side characters, none of whom are explored deeply outside the orbit of Harris’ Michael, all struggle to deliver more naturalistic performances opposite Harris that makes the audience wish the camera would instead follow them home more often.
Uncoupled resurrects character tropes Star’s Sex and the City had established, with Harris’ character stepping into the shoes of a self-centered, whiny, myopic Carrie Bradshaw-type. Anyone who watched Sex and the City for a second time should be familiar with the disdain that sets in once Carrie starts coming across as less of a victim that the show initially portrayed her as, and more of a self-sabotaging narcissist. Hindsight is not a requisite this time around, as Harris remains largely unlikeable and forced, as though he was miscast in a show where he actually happens to be an executive producer.
Samantha in turn is resurrected, artfully, by Emerson Brooks, who may or may not be a stand-in for CNN anchor Don Lemon. Quick-witted, dashing, and given better dialogue than his co-stars, Brooks’ character Billy could have easily been the lead, or a co-lead, with the gallerist of the group, aka the Charlotte, performed by Brooks Ashmanskas. While Ashmanskas deftly and earnestly occupies the middle-aged, single, slightly overweight gay guy trope, whoever wrote the episodes focusing on his gallery and the art world must have learned about the commercial art market from sitcoms. As for Tisha Campbell’s Suzanne, whose directness and sincerity make her reminiscent of Miranda, despite having a genuinely interesting backstory, she is largely pushed to the sidelines in a show that could have benefitted from giving her equal screen time with Harris.
It is a pity that most of these characters have storylines so devoid of depth or meaningful intrigue, that anyone viewing half an episode of the show could reasonably come up with their entire character arc after two glasses of wine.
Harris’ stoic and dashing partner Colin, played by Tuc Watkins, whose exasperation throughout the series is easily relatable and might not entirely be an act, is established as the antagonist early on. By the end of the show, however, breaking up with Neil Patrick Harris and moving to the High Line doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world.
Perhaps Uncoupled is entitled to its shallowness, and the desire to compare it to Sex and the City is a reflex its millennial audience needs to let go of. Perhaps the filming needs to revert to a Modern Family style where the dialogue and story beats would feel self-aware and therefore less superficial. But when the comparisons to its successful predecessors are so glaringly present, the feeling one gets while viewing Uncoupled is akin to being fed dry soy meat patties at a restaurant opened by chefs known for their steak au poivre.
