Toby Fleishmana 41-year-old hepatologist from New York, is going through a new phase of life: the end of his marriage to Rachel has left him in a limbo suspended between the past and the future, a mix of dissatisfaction and lightened regrets from the excessive use of a dating app and the tantalizing promise that sex will soothe her worries. The delicate balance between children, work and privacy is upset by the sudden disappearance of his wife, a mystery that Toby can’t solve without retracing the reasons that led to their breakup.
In its basic synopsis, Fleischman a pezzi – are Disney+ from February 22, 2023 – may seem like a series centered on its male protagonist, a Jesse Eisenberg perfectly placed in the role of a millennial in an existential and sentimental crisis, grappling with anxieties, fears and a quick escape route. His story is told in an almost fabulous tone by her friend Libby (Lizzy Caplan) and moves between the streets and buildings of New York echoing the interpretative style of Woody Allen.
There is a lot of the director of Harry in pieces, starting from the reference to the title. Eisenberg’s Toby Fleischman shares above all the neurotic and talkative gab, a characteristic trait of the acting of both actors. However, the doctor’s romantic and marital misadventures are only the external patina of the story, it is behind the cracks of the pieces of him that the true heart of the series is hidden.
Like the best seller of the same name by Taffy Brodesser-Akner of 2019, Fleishman a pezzi it may seem “just” the story of a man straddling Gen X and Millenials with all its more topical elements (finished marriages, career, sex, place in the world, etc.) but it is actually a broader reflection on relationships and the role of women in a male-centric society. But since «the only way to get someone to listen to a woman is to tell her story through a man», here the protagonist is guiding the story and in the background the female counterpart.
The Rachel of Claire Danes is an elusive character, perceived through Fleischman’s experience and rancor and his shortcomings (emotional and physical), but this is only the portrait painted by her ex-husband and it is only the first layer of paint under which she hides the key to the mystery that does not concern so much Toby, but above all the woman, women and their presumed socially imposed role in the family sphere.
Fleishman a pezzi it is a series that is difficult to place both as a genre and as a target: it needs its own very specific audience, made up not only of millennials but of that now a good portion of them who have already gone through some junctions considered (not necessarily rightly) fundamental in the course of life. If hooked, the suspended fairy-tale and Woody Allen style guarantees quality entertainment.
Photo: Disney+
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