During the current streaming revolution, the likes of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Studios have been trying to position themselves as power players and disruptors in the film and television industry. And so far it’s working. Specifically, Amazon has attempted to create a narrative of embracing critically acclaimed works, much to the delight of cinephiles and the media. In a climate in which the boutique theatrical business is shrinking and it is harder to get indie films made, Amazon has given shelter to celebrated filmmakers like Park Chan-Wook, Jim Jarmusch and Spike Lee and has provided a home to prestige series like “Transparent” and “Fleabag,” in addition to acquiring awards season contenders like “Manchester By The Sea.” So when the studio announced it would present the first ever TV series from Woody Allen, it caused a major commotion. Amazon had just made a significant challenge to the indie film market by edging its way into the Woody Allen business, thus nudging Allen’s former home Sony Pictures Classic to the side (Amazon has acquired his next film as well).
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Almost as soon as Amazon announced the news, Allen seemed to be as neurotic as ever, and even seemed regretful, lamenting how difficult it was to write a narrative different from his custom 90 minute movie. Of course, audiences just assumed Allen was being usual self-deprecating self. All of this is to say that how “Crisis In Six Scenes” is portioned out —across six thirty-minute episodes— might be the least of the show’s problems. It’s a noisy, unpleasant farce, and perhaps not worth the dump truck’s worth of money Amazon provided to Allen so that he might make the leap to TV and the digital streaming landscape.
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“Crisis In Six Scenes” opens up promisingly enough, with Allen’s Sidney J. Munsinger, a neurotic author, getting a haircut in a local barbershop run by Max Casella. Apart showing Allen receiving a non-existent haircut, the scenes are at least chuckle-worthy and even amusing. Discussing his character’s books, Allen employs a meta-element about the entire series — he not-so-subtly mocks his own works, alluding to his Amazon deal, how difficult it was to write his series and how much money he was paid to do so— and it’s surprisingly fresh and atypical for the filmmaker. But the show slowly slides into a tedious, unfunny routine it never recovers from: a clamor of hamfisted bickering, neurosis and protest that provides more irritation than laughs.
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During what comes off as an overly-elongated play, “Crisis In Six Scenes” focuses on the successful author Sid and his marital therapist wife Kay (Elaine May). But perhaps most importantly, there’s a setting that Allen has never ventured into: the late 1960s, in the middle of the flower-power movement and dissident anti-Vietnam era. In fact, outside of the opening titles, in Allen’s perennial Windsor typeface font, “Crisis In Six Scenes” appears radically different —at least briefly at first— with archival footage of anti-war protests, the Black Panthers, sit-ins and the like, coupled with a narrator describing how the times are a-changing: it’s a mode that’s utterly uncharacteristic for Allen. But just as ‘Crisis’ appears as if it might be a gear shift for the director, the episodes quickly devolve into the comfortable mediocrity of Allen’s recent work (a few movies like “Blue Jasmine” and “Midnight in Paris” aside).
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“Crisis In Six Scenes” really centers on Lennie Dale (a not very convincing Miley Cyrus), a 1960s beatnik/radical who constantly spouts anti-establishment diatribes about The Man, Nixon, The System and fascist pigs. Lennie is a fugitive, thanks to her involvement in a prison break resulting in the shooting of a guard, and upends the comfortables lives of the conservative well-to-do, suburban-living Munsingers by breaking into their home —the Munsingers then unwittingly harbor the dissident who’s wanted by the FBI. “The fascist gestapo government mercenary,” is after her, Lennie protests in a typical rant. “The racist propaganda machine is in full swing!” While Kay finds Lennie charming, the anxious Sid cannot wait to kick her out, and this would-be-comical contentious dynamic plays over and over throughout the series.
But nothing in ‘Crisis’ really works —the comedy is too broad and farcical, there’s no character to like, empathize or identify with, or even find amusing. Worse, the plot is tiresomely uneventful and the show often sounds like a parody of someone writing seditious sentiment mixed with Allen’s familiar, anxiety-filled lamentations.
Every character sounds like they are orating a cliché-ridden monologue, with Cyrus’ Lennie character painfully coming across as a wooden rebel reciting a Cliff Notes version of what it means to be a true radical and communist in the 1960s. A few characters fare slightly better. The always-compelling Rachel Brosnahan is perfectly capable in a girlfriend role —though it underserves her talents, she could easily have taken Cyrus’ role and made the show at least twice as tolerable. And John Magaro works as a nephew-like figure to the Munsigners, whose conservative outlook falls apart after he becomes acquainted with marijuana and falls in love with the idea of romancing a revolutionary.
But even this subplot, like most of the overall narrative, is sitcom-y and farcically over-the-top, perhaps not unlike the silly and unconvincing tones of mediocre Allen movies like “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion” and “Small Time Crooks.”
Strangely enough, since Allen has worked with terrific cinematographers like Darius Khonji lately, “Crisis In Six Scenes” looks dull. DP Eigil Bryld‘s lighting appears flat and sitcom-esque. Nothing looks particularly 1960s-like in its appearance other than the tastelessly colored decor and set dressing.
Casting is obviously the monumental flaw. While not quite terrible, Cyrus is clearly out of her depth, flatly reciting lines that she has memorized. May is clearly as capable as she can be with the material, but even Allen should have turned over his role to a surrogate.
As ridiculous the show is, things pick up a little bit in episode five. The cross-talking bickering fades away slightly, and a caper element emerges when Sid and Kay are recruited to fetch a briefcase containing contraband that will help Lennie make her escape, remove her from Sid’s life permanently, but also make the couple deeper accessories to Lennie’s radical crimes.
Ultimately, the tuneless bickering of every character and every scene becomes a noise that’s difficult to engage with (the less said about the final episode, the better). Characters are talking, but never at or to each other, and it often seems like they’re having two different conversations. “Crisis In Six Scenes” is a huge misstep for Allen and likely the first and last TV show he’s going to make once the filmmaker receives his full, deserved critical drubbing. Honestly, if I didn’t have to review ‘Crisis,’ there’s no way I would have made it past episode two, because the only true calamity in Allen’s latest disaster is the one up there on the small screen. [D+]
