Critic Reviews

A stunning television show. The ideas put forth are incredibly difficult to depict, especially in this meta-TV format — but the ways in which they physicalize these themes of class, gentrification, and the ethics surrounding them are bold and rewarding.

Fielder and Safdie prove yet again to be masters of wielding excruciating discomfort toward enlightening results. Don’t lose out.

In fairness, nobody’s all good and not everybody’s entirely awful in “The Curse,” which makes this show about the eminent fakeness of reality TV — and of so much more — ring truer than anything we’ve seen in a long time.

The Curse can test the patience. Scenes go on for an obscene amount of time, and at their frequent worst, elicit an uneasiness that makes some of The Office’s most awkward moments seem like an episode of The Repair Shop. But it is exhilaratingly tense, it ends magnificently and I found it impossible to look away.

The Curse is one of the most exquisite, excruciating pieces of entertainment I have watched, though entertainment might be the wrong word for this social satire that considers wealth, race and gentrification (“The G word!”) and veers between Fargo and a demented Grand Designs.

Fielder and Safdie have shown time and time again that they can create unconventional, staggering works, but together, The Curse is peculiar, confounding, and one of the most brilliant comedies of 2023.

Once again, it’s Fielder, a man whose face seems frozen in a flinch at the constant awareness of his own existence in this humiliating world, who makes the experience so transcendently uncomfortable.

Led by Emma Stone in what may be the finest performance of her career, it’s simultaneously choke-on-your-laughter weird and squirm-inducingly terrifying, the two climaxing in a finale of mind-boggling insanity.

Rooted in strong writing and directing from Fielder and David and Nathan Zellner, the three central performances – including Emma Stone's – push this boundary-crushing series to cruel and dark yet magical places.

There is so much to say about this dizzingly ambitious gem of a series, and yet saying too much would be doing the viewer a disservice (and defying Showtime's spoiler policy). As hack as it is to say about a TV show, it makes for a uniquely cinematic experience and one of the most original series of the year.