CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Last Night’s TV: Even Harrison Ford can’t save this schmaltzy, laboured therapy sitcom
Shrink (Apple TV+)
Harrison Ford says he continues to work at age 82 because it gives him “essential human contact.” But if that means starring in sitcoms like Shrinking, he might as well join a bowls club.
Shrinking is the terrible thing about American comedies. It’s plodding and unoriginal, the characters are stereotypes, the sets are blatantly fake, and the dialogue is deep in schmaltz.
Ford plays a grumpy psychotherapist with Parkinson’s disease and mentors a middle-aged colleague named Jimmy (Jason Segel), whose wife was killed by a drunk driver.
If that doesn’t sound like a lot of laughs, wait until you meet his client, Jimmy’s roommate Sean (Luke Tennie), an ex-soldier with anger management issues and PTSD.
Still not chuckling? Try this one-liner, delivered in Ford’s best gravelly mumble: “Every time Sean feels upset, he seeks outside help.”
The design of the psychotherapy should be funny. The greatest American sitcom ever made revolved around two psychiatrists: Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier (the version with David Hyde Pierce, not the lumpen sequel with Nicholas Lyndhurst)
Shrinking is the terrible thing about American comedies. It’s labored, the characters are stereotypes, the sets are blatantly fake and the dialogue is deep in schmaltz
To give Sean “tools” to help with that dysregulated feeling (I think my gas boiler had something similar), Ford teaches him “desire reversal” therapy: he has to imagine what he fears most and “go to move towards the pain’.
Not only is that not funny, it’s terrible advice. Of course, it does wonders for Sean: he has an epiphany, stops torturing himself with guilt and finds the courage to tell his employer that he doesn’t want to be interviewed on her boyfriend’s podcast. What a lump-in-the-throat moment, huh?
Earlier this month, Ford told Vanity Fair, “As far as I’m concerned, all I’ve ever done is comedy.” It’s true that, like Han Solo and Indiana Jones, he’s delivered some of cinema’s best jokes since the heyday of Humphrey Bogart. But jokes need witty lyrics, and that’s what Shrinking lacks in spades.
It’s doubly frustrating because the design of the psychotherapy is supposed to be funny. The greatest American sitcom ever made revolved around two psychiatrists: Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier (the version with David Hyde Pierce, not the lumpen sequel with Nicholas Lyndhurst).
And mob boss Tony’s tense confessionals with his therapist on The Sopranos infused that masterful crime drama with a touch of dark comedy. Shrinking doesn’t produce anything like that. Instead, it’s a mix of crude sex jokes, mundane domestic scenes and psycho jargon.
Characters often appear unexpectedly, causing other characters to overreact – although this doesn’t seem to be a running joke, just a cheap and repetitive means of generating ‘humor’.
It’s a mix of crude sex jokes, everyday domestic scenes and psycho jargon
Characters often appear unexpectedly, causing other characters to overreact, although this does not appear to be a running joke
Jimmy and his neighbor Derek grunt or jump up and down on the spot, like all fathers in jaded American comedies. Their teenage children – all played by actors in their twenties – have no purpose other than to support and be wise beyond their years.
And of course there is a Gay Best Friend: his name is Brian (Michael Urie), and he is also friends with Jimmy’s neighbors. Why can’t they have their own Gay Best Friend? I can’t imagine they are scarce in California.
It is difficult to guess what Harrison Ford finds so comical about Shrinking. But maybe he’s been laughing to himself since his agent told him what Apple was willing to pay.