FAMILY TREE

*** (out of ****)

 

If you’ve never heard of Chris O’Dowd, then it might surprise you that the typecasting has already begun. The breakout star of the Brit show The IT Crowd, most Americans found out who he was in Bridesmaids, where he did a pretty great job in the boring girlfriend role. Since then, he’s exploded, starring in this year’s The Sapphires, a recurring role on Girls and, reaching the pinnacle of movie actor stardom, voicing a role in a summer animated blockbuster (Epic). His typecasting doesn’t scare me. I think it’s OK for comedic actors to get typecast. Let the Dreamgirls and Eternal Sunshines and Big Fans come later in your career. For now, develop a persona, let people know the kind of scripts to bring you, and try not to be boring for as long as possible.

 

If that’s what Chris O’Dowd is doing, it’s a breath of fresh air. In this Post-ironic-Snark-is-King-Shit-on-Everything comedic world we’re living in, O’Dowd’s persona is humble, smart (without rubbing it in your face), and observant. He’s got a special brand of Loser Charm that connects him more to Liz Lemon then it does any of his other male contemporaries. He’s both self-aware and genuine, two very rare qualities in personas these days. It’s all of this and more that makes him a perfect fit for a new Christopher Guest mockumentary.

 

Wait…CHRISTOPHER GUEST HAS A NEW MOCKUMENTARY, AND IT’S A TV SHOW, AND IT’S ON HBO? That’s right. I know it might seem like I’m burying the lead here, but I’m not. This show is all about O’Dowd’s eventual takeover of the world. Just wait until he hosts SNL next year. Everyone will say “Who?” and it will be the best episode of the season. He’s a perfect fit for Guest’s low-key tone, giving us something we’ve never really got in a Guest film before, a straight man that grounds the other wacky characters, but is just as funny in his own right. O’Dowd excels at watching the same person you’re watching, and then saying exactly what you’re thinking, but using a cleverness and timing that you are incapable of. This makes the show incredibly successful, while at the same time being lesser Guest.

 

The show definitely seems in it for the long haul, and if it’s not, it’s going to pace itself like it is. In this way, it definitely feels more like a BBC production, where people are allowed to settle down and trust their audience. So when I say lesser Guest, it’s because I’ve only seen the first two episodes. There’s a little bit of an adventure, but a lot of it is set-up. O’Dowd plays a 30-something guy named Tom, who is still kind of floating through life. He’s unemployed, and just got dumped by his fiancé. An estranged aunt dies and leaves him a chest full of crap, including some old pictures of his family. Tom decides that, in order to reclaim sort of focus in his life, he’s going to create a family tree, and try to get to know some of the people that came before him. In the first episode, he finds a picture of a man he believes to be his grandfather, and sets off trying to get any information about him he can. From here, we begin to tiptoe into the world of Christopher Guest, but not everything feels the same.

 

Tom’s sister still used the monkey puppet that helped her cope with childhood trauma to say all of the things that she can’t say. OK…this feels like classic Guest. But from there, the wacky levels are toned way, way down. I’m not sure if this is because of O’Dowd — maybe his persona wouldn’t gel with Guest’s typical kooks — or maybe Guest decided to settle down a little bit with this one, and in that case, it’s even more evidence for O’Dowd being a perfect lead for the show. Things aren’t perfect…yet…as it can often feel like you don’t get enough of some characters and WAY too much others (the sister ventriloquist is not enough, believe it or not), but that’s going to be the case with anything like this. In the end, being a little bit bumpy doesn’t matter at all. Christopher Guest. The Guest Troupe. HBO. Chris O’Dowd. Are you really not going to tune in and see what’s up?

 

-Ryan Haley