The Collective Trauma in ‘Mare of Easttown’ The Collective Trauma in ‘Mare of Easttown’
Unlike a standard true crime show, the HBO series focuses less on the mystery at its center and more on the community that must bear its consequences.
Jul 14, 2021 / 2021 Year in Review / Erin Schwartz
The Surreal Pleasures of ‘The Masked Singer’ The Surreal Pleasures of ‘The Masked Singer’
By discarding all the tropes of standard reality TV, this singing competition allows viewers to revel in pure weirdness.
Jun 2, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
Luca Guadagnino’s Meditation on Youth Luca Guadagnino’s Meditation on Youth
His HBO series We Are Who We Are looks at teenagehood less as a time in one’s life than as a mindset one inhabits.
Jan 27, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
The Horrors of Charlie Kaufman The Horrors of Charlie Kaufman
His latest existential love story, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, reveals the limits of his work.
Nov 18, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
The Tangle of Desire and Class in ‘Normal People’ The Tangle of Desire and Class in ‘Normal People’
The television adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel depicts how people can fall in love in a world structured by power.
Jul 28, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
‘God Friended Me’ Was the Strangest Show on TV ‘God Friended Me’ Was the Strangest Show on TV
Each episode of the CBS comedy-drama functions as a morality play for a peculiar worldview.
May 14, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
The Beautiful, Baffling Mysteries of Paolo Sorrentino’s Vatican The Beautiful, Baffling Mysteries of Paolo Sorrentino’s Vatican
His television series, The Young Pope and The New Pope, tell us a story bigger than one focused on just church or state.
Mar 23, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
Why ‘You’ Is So Terrifying Why ‘You’ Is So Terrifying
The Netflix show turns Internet obsession and the need for attention when we’re online all the time into a horror story.
Mar 2, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
Every Generation Gets Its Own ‘Little Women’ Every Generation Gets Its Own ‘Little Women’
Greta Gerwig’s adaptation faces two challenges: to be a good film and to mark how we can imagine women—as sisters, as antagonists, as wives, as workers—in our own time.
Dec 18, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz
In ‘Succession,’ Who Is the Joke Really On? In ‘Succession,’ Who Is the Joke Really On?
The show is heralded as a nuanced and cutting critique of the 1 percent. But whose side is it really on?
Oct 17, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Erin Schwartz