Apple TV’s ‘The Studio’ satire satisfies

If Apple TV’s The Studio satire could be compared to a milkshake, it would be salted caramel. Because it’s funny, hilarious in fact, but with a healthy measure of saltiness that dries out and beats its subject matter into absolute deliciousness. Just a long-winded way, really, to say that this show is an absolute must-watch. It’s classic Seth Rogan, only better.

Just a caution from the get-go. It’s not for kids. But it is about the many layers that comprise what we consider Hollywood and show business to be about. It’s the bankable predictability versus creating art, it’s ego versus well, plain stupidity. It’s bumbling for the sake of it, and crass where it matters most; insert here the studio boss who in one of the earlier episodes shared that “if Warner Bros can make a billion dollars off the plastic t**s of a p****-less doll, we should be able to make two billion off the legacy brand of Kool-Aid.”

This is the line that was fed to Rogan’s character, Matt Remick, when he was promoted after his predecessor, Patty, was fired. Remick is devoted to film and has always dreamt of making meaningful movies. But he took the job and swallowed the lemon of pure commercialism… kind of. He commissioned Martin Scorsese, who does a fantastic cameo, and turns the Kool Aid Man movie into an epic narrative by paying the celebrated director a huge sum of money to work the character into a metaphorical aspect of an existing script.

‘The Studio’: Ego versus stupidity

The original script, of course, was about something far more serious. It was about the Jonestown massacre. This, of course, was a cult mass suicide in the late 70s when the California-based People’s Temple of Jim Jones settled in an agricultural community in Guyana. Jones instructed more than 900 people to drink poison.

In Remick’s altered version, Scorsese was to script and direct a version where Kool-Aid killed everyone. The loose metaphor here, of course, is that everyone “drank the Kool-Aid”. The idiom directly related back to Jonestown and means blindly following a person or an ideology without question.

Steve Buscemi was tipped to star as Jones.

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And of course, it all backfires across 10 episodes of farcical satire that unfold like a beginner’s attempt at complex origami. Together with his friend and underling, Sai Samperstein, played by comedian Ike Barinholtz, Remick fakes himself through the job. He rehires Patty, who was once his mentor, too, as a producer at the studio and throws money at her. Then, he nitpicks and spoils a critical sunset shot for some blockbuster. He sells his classic car to an actor for two million dollars to fund a reshoot of a stuff-up. It’s a celebration of wit throughout.

Incredible A-list cameos

Other cameos in the show are A-list. Charlize Theron appears in a party scene as Scorsese’s agony aunt while Steve Buscemi, Zac Efron, Ron Howard and Rebecca Hall and a host of others add to the antics.

There is not a moment in the show that any audience could be bored by. It is fast-paced and balances between farce and satire; Rogan makes valid observations about the materialism and plastic façade that Hollywood has become. And he does so subtly, beautifully, almost.

From the show’s introduction, produced in a 70s-style Cinerama, through to the tinted and well-placed colourization, the script, the performances, and the direction. The lighting and cinematography are as retro as they are fly-on-the-wall.

It’s a show to admire, enjoy and watch more than once, because nuance is everywhere. On first watch, you may not be able to take it all in. It’s that enjoyable.

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