Jon Hamm’s your favourite criminal in ‘Your Friends & Neighbors’
Made for those who miss Don Draper
This post contains spoilers for Episodes 1 and 2 of Your Friends and Neighbors. Watch them and then come back!
We’ve had a lot of cult-like rich films over the past few years that haven’t quite hit the spot: Opus, Blink Twice, Don’t Worry Darling to name a few. Usually, the themes directors try to tackle around the uber-rich and unpacking their eccentricities just can’t be attempted in a cinematic two hours and instead, we need ten hours of television to get there.
Apple TV’s heard us loud and clear once again with the new series Your Friends & Neighbors, following ex-hedge fund manager Andrew Cooper as he navigates his transition from clueless, useless rich man to adrenaline-fuelled petty criminal. The only difference between him and his other Apple TV counterpart, found in Paul Marks from The Morning Show, is the slightly-strange, incongruous inner monologue that creator Jonathan Tropper insisted on including. If anything, this singular creative decision showcases why this is a different take on the rich. Tropper explodes the protective casing of gated communities, ridicules the ambition of the finance bro with snarky takes on nepotism and HR fumbles, whilst capturing the lowliness of the betrayal between bros and sisterhoods alike.
Between Jon Hamm and Amanda Peet as equally insufferable divorcees, Olivia Munn’s jilted marriage, and Isabel Garitt’s teenage temper tantrums, the show captures what we’d hate to believe is true: rich people are sometimes just like us. Even from the opening intro, we can tell this is intended to uproot the admiration we still seem to have for the upper-class amongst us, for the country club-goers and the tax avoiders. With an opening shot that’s a lot more gory than we’d expect for a Jon Hamm-led show set in an idyllically named Westmont Village, Apple TV seems to have subverted expectations once again. At least all the losses on the streamer’s production have been worth it this year!
At its core, Your Friends & Neighbors has a solid story with equally solid writing. Sometimes, the verbosity of Coop’s inner monologue doesn’t pair up with the partially meathead appearance, but maybe that’s the first of many juxtapositions that the show’s success is founded upon. Rather than showing us a shitty husband and sad kids post-divorce, we have a shitty ex-wife and apathetic kids. Instead of showing us cringy brotherhood camaraderie, it’s every man out for himself with a lot of shit-talking behind backs. Feels like the Real Househusbands of Westmont Village.
My only real issue with the first two episodes of Your Friends & Neighbors is that they’re nowhere near as exciting as the next few instalments. It’s only at the end of the second episode we get some real heat in place of the seemingly endless exposition. Tropper’s lucky that most long-time viewers of this show will eat that up: we love a backstory and especially a never-ending one. Coop is a man of many secrets and man of little talent, much to his regret and to our satisfaction. There’s no better way to watch a show than to feel conflictingly sorry and jealous of its main character.
If you found yourself disappointed after the second Hamm Happy Hour, stick with it. Violence, tension, higher stakes and a little more emotional intelligence feature all the way up to Episode 7 (where my kindly-provided screener ended, so I can’t speak for the last two episodes just yet), which brings out the best of a well-put-together cast on the industry’s most premium streamer out there right now.
If you enjoyed this review, check out my reviews of Apple TV’s other shows Disclaimer* and The Studio, which I’m reviewing every week.
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As always, I’d love to hear what you thought of Your Friends & Neighbors - let me know in the comments.