The Curse is a show that does not have an easy in or an easy out. You end up watching the show through fingers over your eyes as awkward situations hurtle towards their cringe-y climax. Nathan Fielder takes the next step from The Rehearsal for The Curse, his first scripted show, which he has co-created and co-written with Benny Safdie.
The premise is deceptively simple. Whitney (Emma Stone) and Asher Siegel (Fielder) have been married for a year. Whitney’s parents, Elizabeth (Constance Shulman) and Paul (Corbin Bernsen), have made their millions by being unethical landlords. Whitney eschews her parents’ ways and wants to give back to society. She chooses a crime-ridden, downtrodden neighbourhood in New Mexico to develop into an inclusive community with eco-friendly passive homes.
This process is the basis of a reality show for HGTV, Fliplanthropy, that Whitney and Asher would host. Producer Dougie (Safdie) is constantly trying to include action, conflict and drama into what he and the focus group perceive as a somewhat vanilla show.
One of his attempts to add drama is filming Asher giving money to a little girl selling soda. That goes terribly wrong with Asher not having change and giving the girl, Nala (Hikmah Warsame), a 100-dollar bill, which he promptly takes back after the filming is over. He promises to get change — which results in another awkward scene at the ATM. Nala curses Asher and things go further downhill.
The Curse
Though the show is called The Curse, the spell in question is just a mini one, which was all the rage on TikTok, as Nala explains. There is a different kind of curse blighting the land and the people, which the show reveals with an unblinking eye. Whitney’s need to do the right thing for the planet and its people is constantly at war with her self-interest. Her belief that money can fix everything goes diametrically opposite to her resistance to conspicuous consumption.
She wishes to do right by the original inhabitants of the neighbourhood but is not above cajoling and coercing Cara (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin), a Picuris Pueblo artist, to act as a consultant on Fliplanthropy. Whitney does not wish to sell the house to a person whose ideology clashes with hers but does not mind hiring people and a baby (!) to act as buyers.
Whitney’s jaw-dropping non-self-awareness runs through The Curse. When she blithely tells Asher, “We don’t want the neighborhood filled with people whose rich parents bought them houses,” the irony is so sharp, it hurts.
While Dougie is devastated by his wife’s passing, he is not above using it for sympathy. Asher’s attempts at taking down the casino he worked at, is also powered by self interest.
The look of The Curse echoes the heightened sensibility of a reality show, with the mirrors forming a fascinating conceit of reflections and perceptions. Emma Stone is the beating heart of this show that sometimes seems to go for a scattershot approach when a more focussed one would have served it better.
One thing The Curse could have done without were the penis jokes. While wincing at Whitney’s tone-deaf remarks, one also wonders about the authenticity of that recoil at an insensitive remark made by a person with different lived experiences. That is the level of self-awareness one needs to watch The Curse. Or you could simply enjoy Dougie’s stoned philosophising and Asher’s hair-raising attempts at corporate comedy class.
The Curse currently streams on Lionsgate Play with the last three episodes dropping on January 19, 2024
