Why The Leftovers is the best show no one’s watching

Did you see last week’s episode of The Leftovers? Do you think the pie left on the Murphys doorstep was poisoned? Will TV’s most enthralling couple Kevin and Nora be able to stick together under enormous emotional pressure still lingering from past traumas? These are questions no one is asking me.

Is there any hope for a zombie cure? Is Jon Snow really dead? Did you see Dany ride her dragon? These questions are more in tune with the cultural consciousness.

We are living in a golden age of television where premium shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead have surpassed the cinematic medium for intelligent adult stories that delve deeply into characters lives. But nothing has occupied my mind quite like The Leftovers. I am utterly engrossed.

To clarify, I am not talking about last night’s dinner; I am talking about HBO’s best drama that has not gotten the recognition it deserves. Perhaps it’s because setting a show in a small town in the aftermath of a rapture-like disappearance of 2% of the world’s population makes for depressing viewing.

I describe having found this show as like buying a new property that has golden nuggets buried in the backyard and no one knows but you. There is an inclination to keep it to myself. To not share these golden nuggets. To be all hipster and I say: I liked it before it was cool. But there is a stronger inclination to shout it from the rooftops.

I first shared the show with my sister who said, "I can see why you like it" and "Is the lead guy engaged to Jen Aniston?" I then tried to wring in my brother who flatly refused saying “there’s enough suffering in the world, why would I want to see more on TV.” Lastly I tested my mother, who after viewing the pilot said democratically, as she often does when we have a difference in taste, “it's not my favourite.”

Granted, the first season has been snubbed by some for being too slow, obscure and hard to get a grasp on. But I adored it like nothing else.

The intrigue of the show revolves around a high-concept: what if hundreds of thousands of humans departed this earth without explanation?

It's a tough pill to swallow, I know.

It would be all too easy to write it off as religious hokum, a gimmick, a conceit as contrived and ludicrous as the island from Lost. And in some ways it is. I mean where the fuck did they go? And who took them? Was it God? Was it aliens? Was it the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Initially these questions were at the front of my mind. Someway through the first block of episodes, I almost expected a Stargate portal to open, and out would step a wizard to tell our characters why this happened to them and what their next mission was. But no such answers came. I soon learnt that this was not the story the writers were interested in telling, and so I was not interested in knowing.

Instead we saw characters struggle with identity, harm one another, join cults, abandon families, and fight against all odds to regain a sense of normalcy. The question of what happened to those who departed falls to the wayside in favour of how do the leftovers live now? The drama comes from their reaction to tragedy. How do those left behind deal with survivor’s guilt? It’s a meditation on how we cope with loss, if you will.

  

We see the world through the lens of the Garvey family who are trying to stay together in a post apocalyptic society where family seems to have lost all meaning. Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) is the chief of police, a father of two who is trying to maintain order in a town of chaos. His wife has left him to join a mysterious cult called the Guilty Remnant, his son has dropped out of college and his relationship with his daughter is strained. Kevin must keep the peace between townspeople and the cult, which is made tougher by his family situation. Throw in a concoction of mystery, strange dream sequences, bouts of psychosis, and then down the cocktail all in one. It's a wild and unsettling ride, bemusing and confusing. I can best describe it as if David Lynch and Stephen King had a love child. 

It’s a risky follow up to Lost for showrunner Damon Lindelof who swore he was done with TV way back in 2010. It actually sounds like it would suffer from the same mistakes Lost did, but apart from the general conceit, the comparisons end there.

Lindelof describes his return to television with the metaphor of a baby who keeps sticking a key into an electrical socket. You may get zapped but the heart wants what the hearts wants. For this, I respect him tremendously because he goes boldy where other writers do not have the guts to go.

Maybe the show doesn’t represent everyone. At the end of the day it's entertainment. But it's entertainment that engages one’s critical faculties. We're encouraged to ask tough questions: Is this right, or is this wrong? Is this happenstance or is it something more? And more pervasively, how would I react if I were in the same situation?

I can't pretend that some people won't find it pretentious. There are no zombies, no dragons, no badass dwarfs, and not nearly enough nudity as Game of Thrones. The climax of an episode of the leftovers could be someone washing the dishes and I would be utterly riveted. That is a testament to the technique and calibre with which this story is told.

  

If there were a thesis to the show perhaps it is this: that people prescribe meaning to things differently. In a modern context, it's becoming harder and harder to not land on an atheistic point of view. And yet there is this growing space of people who reject institutionalised religion but retain a certain spirituality. "I don't know what I believe, but I'm kind of spiritual" they might muse over coffee or a cigarette. Whether we openly admit it or not, there is a part of all of us that wants to believe in something greater.

I tend to be defensive of one's right to their beliefs, whether they align with mine or not. It would be egregious of me to claim I have the answers, but to deny them theirs seems arrogant.

Just like us, the characters in The Leftovers cover a wide spectrum of belief and unbelief. Some people turn to religion, others lose faith completely, many land in the grey area where we prescribe our own personal meaning to things. In regards to the show, the ambiguity is alright with me. In fact, I love the ambiguity. Not simply because it's provocative but because it touches on something deep down within all of us searching for meaning.

The 5 best films of 2014: Sam Allen-Ankins’s choice

It was the year that the Mockingjay spread her wings and played the face of a rebellion. And that girl from The Descendants joined a leather-clad street gang to play capture the flag. And Brenton Thwaites took a sleigh ride in snow and saved a baby from abortion… or something? I don’t know what happened there. All I know is if our society crumbles tomorrow and all order turns to anarchy, there surely will arise a meek-faced teen with a Jesus complex to save the poor from Nazis Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet. Yep, teen dystopian fiction hit the iceberg in a big way this year and I watched from the deck.



So if you are looking for something a little more thrilling or simply can’t wait until Mockingjay Part 2: PTSD, I present my top 5 films of the year you should have already seen by now.
 

5. Fury

Brad Pitt in World War 2? You’re sold!
 

Fury’s strength is in the believable sense of camaraderie among its lead characters that include a tank squad of Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal and a jittery Logan Lerman. The raw depiction of battle combat is exciting and horrific enough to keep your toes warm.

Familiar themes of heroism, dehumanisation and brutality taps into our love of ‘the underdog.’ But there’s a little more heart to Fury than the straightforward premise would imply. A significant focus on character makes the rousing tale hit harder than your average historical backgrounder. 

Watch this one with: Arnott's Biscuits

4. Begin Again

Keira Knightley singing an acoustic album for 2 hours sounds like it could be a trying experience, which is why I was all the more delighted to find she holds a tune very sweetly. And how refreshing it is for her to be starring in a film set this century, and one in which she doesn’t die!
 

In Begin Again, an accidental encounter between a young singer-songwriter and disgraced music producer (played by the aptly named Mark Ruffalo) sprouts a promising collaboration between the two spirited independents in streets of New York City.



Director John Carney follows in the footsteps of his last musical feature Once by filming largely by improvisation. The relaxed tone of the film exudes warmth thanks largely to charming work from its well-matched leads. The narrative flows with such ease there is a serendipitous quality to the interpersonal drama as if it were happening in the moment. Neither assaulting nor sentimental, Begin Again is a rare breed of rom-com rarely seen in cinema today that is difficult to deny.
 

Watch this one with: Ice-cream

3. The Imitation Game

Benedict Cumberbatch is Alan Turing. The perfect marriage of character and actor, it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role of the English mathematician credited with cracking Hitler’s code and winning the war. Ever the Sherlockian figure, Turing is an oddball, an infuriating genius. He’s not particularly good at making friends or keeping a conversation, but his mind works better than most.

The Imitation Game tells his true story; from the his secret wartime work on a revolutionary mechanical machine capable of breaking 3,000 Enigma-generated naval codes a day to the tragedy of his post-war decline following his conviction of homosexuality which was illegal in Britain at the time.

Cumberbatch’s complicated lead is effortlessly likable, one of the most genuinely engrossing characters of the year. Knightley is another highlight, bringing a pitch-perfect mix of silk and steel to the supporting role of Joan Clarke, the sole female of the top-secret British team of code breakers. Their sterling performances teamed with Graham Moore’s tight adapted screenplay click neatly into place.

The Imitation Game is extremely well made, really rather poignant and succeeds as bloody good old fashioned entertainment. Without-a-doubt the best biopic in a long time, and so very British.

Watch this one with: Tea

2. Nightcrawler 

Jake Gyllenhaal is a genius. Give him an Oscar. Give him all the Oscars dammit!

Set in the nocturnal underbelly of Los Angeles, Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man who’s thirsty to make a name for himself in the world of crime journalism. With a camera by his side and a police scanner on his dashboard, Lou chases down crashes, fires, murders and other mayhem to film tragedy at hand and make a quick buck. Encouraged by the local news director Nina played by Rene Russo, Lou finds love in his work and soon becomes obsessive to the point of crazed. He will stop at nothing to capture the most graphic, bloody, controversial footage that breaks all journalistic and moral codes.

Gyllenhaal is transfixing and seemingly sociopathic as Lou. His gaunt figure and subtle physicality only adds to the eerie charismatic appeal. To be honest the less you know about this movie, the more fun it will be going in. Visually sleek, dark and funny too, it is one of the few real exhilarating releases of year.

Watch this one with: Pizza

1. Gone Girl

No surprise here.

Dark, sexy and stylish, Gone Girl plays well to David Fincher’s twisted vision. Based off a book of the same name, the film’s premise is simple: Boy marries girl. Girl goes missing. Boy is suspected of murder.

Twists and turns are plenty, especially in the second half when the tone shifts from self-serious crime drama to all-out erotic thriller. Love, crime, sex, and betrayal - everything a good thriller needs, Gone Girl delivers in spades. This one ticks all the boxes for me. 

Watch this one with: a Xanax

Honorable mentions (also worth a watch):

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Boyhood, Pride, Guardians of the Galaxy

Gone Girl Review

You don't know what you've got 'til it's...

There are many surprising things about Gone Girl, not the least of which Ben Affleck finally stars in a film I like. A lot. Even more surprising than Affleck’s successful stab at a personal renaissance, are the wild and twisted subject matters his new film takes at every turn. Love, crime, sex, and betrayal - everything a good thriller needs, Gone Girl delivers in spades. Add in a murder-mystery, a Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score, and the Austen-esque beauty of Rosamund Pike and you’ve got this year’s must-see.

yep

From the offset, Gone Girl is classic Fincher. He had me at that cold opening that evoked equal sensations of paranoia and glee:

“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head…I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy?"

It’s stomach-churningly macabre.

Based off a book of the same name, the film’s premise is simple: Boy marries girl. Girl goes missing. Boy is suspected of murder. It starts off slow in the sleepy town of Missouri on the morning of Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary. The couple lives a privileged life in picture-perfect suburbia where, behind closed doors, domestic drama runs rife. Amy is an uptight, unemployed magazine writer and Nick is her laid-off deadbeat husband. When Amy vanishes without warning, Nick brings suspicion upon himself by seeming not devastated. Oh yeah, and there’s that time he is photographed bearing a foolish grin beside his wife’s MISSING poster. His reaction is not just perverse - it’s damn hilarious.

What a schmuck

Nick’s tomboyish twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon) swears to stay by his side amidst the media frenzy, although she suspects he is hiding something. Coon, coming off the back of the first season of The Leftovers, is outstanding in her debut movie role and demands everyone take notice. (Did I mention that she should win all the awards ever for her work on that show?)

A seemingly straightforward whodunit crime drama soon diverts into a complex commentary on marriage, psychopathy and media circuses. Fincher explores the dichotomy of who we are as opposed to how we present ourselves. He highlights the personas people pursue to successfully navigate social institutions and intimate relationships alike. At the heart of all the commotion is Nick and Amy's dysfunctional marriage, which is foundering for several reasons. The early stages of their domestic drama are told in flashbacks accompanied by Pike’s haunting narration. Scripted by the original author Gillian Flynn, and sticking closely to the source novel, it’s funny in a grim way, getting more histrionic as events unfold.

The intricacy of plot, the airtight precision of the scenes, and Pike’s cool blondeness resembles that of a Hitchcock film. Twists and turns are plenty, especially in the second half when the tone shifts from self-serious crime drama to all-out erotic thriller. Suddenly the floor is covered in a puddle of blood and lies, and the wacky story elements no longer seem unreasonable but wildly entertaining.