Critic Reviews

I could watch 100 episodes of “Mrs. Fletcher” ... “Mrs. Fletcher” is a deeply empowering satire, and one so in touch with its motivations and characters that you’ll wish you could visit Eve and Brendan every week for as long as they’d let you.

With several excellent subplots that weave throughout the episodes, Mrs. Fletcher unfolds a touching, funny, sometimes deeply sad, and sometimes outrageously horny story of human sexuality.

There’s a smart symmetry to “Mrs. Fletcher,” the superb new HBO limited series. ... The structure of the series (whose all-women directing roster features Nicole Holofcener, Liesl Tommy, Carrie Brownstein, and Gillian Robespierre) has been mapped out beautifully. ... When Eve and Brendan finally come back together late in the series, whose episodes are perfectly gauged at a half-hour each, it’s a precise and satisfying collision.

There’s a lot to love about this show, from the concision of its 30-minute episodes to an all-female roster of directors that includes Nicole Holofcener (Friends With Money) and Obvious Child‘s Gillian Robespierre. Hahn may well be typecast as a sexually frustrated woman, but she’s also the only actor I can think of who could do justice to such a simultaneously sweet and nasty role. Perrotta gives supporting characters surprising depth.

Though it’s only seven half-hour episodes, Fletcher gives the excellent ensemble substantive subplots about their own search for acceptance. White is a standout as Brendan ... The finale, which omits several of the developments in Perotta’s novel, feels bewilderingly abrupt for a show billed as a “limited series.” If ever a story cried out for another chapter, it’s this one.

A comfortable, pleasing character study, one with points to make about the ways the sexual revolution has failed men and women both.

Each episode is only 30 minutes, which feels right for Eve’s story, even if it leaves the Brendan portions of the show feeling underfed. It’s clear how the two halves of Mrs. Fletcher reflect one another, but one shines so much brighter than the other that it’s all you want to look at. Still, it makes sense: Both mother and son are moving through their respective sexual primes; she just has a much deeper understanding of what to do with it than he does.

“Mrs. Fletcher” is filled with funny and awkward scenes in which the lead character has her world greatly opened, but it is perhaps more memorable (and more unique) as a show about a young man who finds the world is shutting him out.

A bold, engaging, sexy coming-of-age story.

Mrs. Fletcher takes a concept that sounds like a snooze and turns it into an unexpectedly absorbing limited series. Give much of the credit to "The Leftovers" producer-writer Tom Perrotta -- adapting his book -- and star Kathryn Hahn, who throws her all into a role distinguished by its lack of clear definition.