Must Watch review Fleishman Is in Trouble

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan review ‘Fleishman is in Trouble’.

A Disney+ series, this is a tale of a middle-class Manhattan woman who vanishes, leaving her ex with the kids.

Hayley says, “It's not a thriller about a missing woman, it's more a story about a divorced guy going on a load of Tinder dates and realising he will never figure out what happened to his wife, until he can be more honest about what happened to their marriage in the first place.”

“Fleishman Is In Trouble is an adaptation of the massive, bestselling novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner that came out in 2019.

It stars Jesse Eisenberg as Fleishman, a divorced man in his early 40s whose wife, or rather ex-wife, played by Claire Danes, drops the kids off one day and then goes to a yoga retreat and mysteriously disappears.

But it's not a thriller about a missing woman, it's more a story about a divorced guy going on a load of Tinder dates and realising he will never figure out what happened to his wife until he can be more honest about what happened to their marriage in the first place.”

Scott says, ‘the masterstroke of the series is how it looks at how a break up can force you to really trip up’.

Scott says, “The observations it makes about relationships are very specific and are something that I think many people can relate to.”

“For example, how memories of relationships can be tainted after a breakup, because everything that was good feels like it was a bit of foreshadowing. The masterstroke of the series is how it looks at how a break up can force you to really trip up, because it takes you quite a long time to realise what has happened. I think the performances here by Jesse Eisenberg and Claire Danes are great.”

“There are a few frustrations. I found sometimes, the kind of arty camera work was just a little bit too annoying. The opening shot, for example, is entirely upside down. It also does that jumpy narrative thing of going back and forth, back and forth in different timelines.”

Scott says, ‘I found its tone really interesting, I found the performances great, I found it distinctive.’

“Sometimes you get a bit confused about where things actually are, or if they are trying to mislead you by not revealing the full picture.”

“It is sometimes a storytelling tactic that works and we have discussed it in previous reviews, when it has actually worked and I have been really impressed by it. But a lot of the time it doesn’t and it just frustrates me.It frustrates me here but overall I found its tone really interesting, I found the performances great, I found it distinctive.”

Hayley says, ‘It's funny, sad, annoying and embarrassing, and I think it's also really relatable in a lot of ways.’

“I think Fleishman’s anger at his wife ghosting him might have been different if this story was written by a certain kind of guy. But because this is written by a woman – Brodesser-Akner - whose day-job is writing magazine profiles in which she is trying to figure out the reason why people are the way they are – there are complex levels in this show about how and why women may get to the end of their patience and just check out of their whole lives."

“It's funny, sad and annoying and embarrassing, and I think it's also really relatable in a lot of ways. I think it's great.”

Trouble In Fleishman is available now on Disney +

Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds and all other good podcast providers.

This week, the team also reviewed Beyond Paradise and Go Hard or Go Home

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