Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Mr. Corman is a dull and miserable viewing experience

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"If someone plugged all of the mid-tier Sundance, quarter-life crisis dramedies of the last decade about people discovering that they may be the problem of their lives into a machine and asked it to stretch all the contained clichés into a TV series, that computer would spit out Mr. Corman," says Brian Tallerico of Gordon-Levitt's new Apple TV+ series. "Written, directed, produced by, and starring the multi-talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this Apple TV+ series (produced by A24) is the tale of a miserable man, and it wants you to be miserable too. Other than a few flashes of life from supporting characters who are largely just trying to do what viewers can’t and get out of the orbit of the self-obsessed lead, it’s a dull chore, a show that fails to find its purpose and direction as much as its title character. It’s a really hard sell to ask someone to hang out with a person as generally unlikable as Josh Corman for five hours, but that’s the task of watching Mr. Corman." Tallerico adds: "The worst example of the show suffocating its characters comes in an 'alternate timelines' episode in which various possible lives of Josh Corman unfold, and he’s awful in almost every one of them, even the one where he’s dead. Yes, maybe this is the point—people like Josh Corman like to blame their circumstance instead of looking inside themselves for solutions—but it’s a tough sell to spend time with someone like that for a 90-minute Sundance dramedy. It’s almost impossible for ten episodes of television. And when the arc of Mr. Corman gets to COVID, it becomes even tougher to bear, although at least episodes start to give Josh some much-needed perspective."

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• The pandemic must've made Joseph Gordon-Levitt realize his character was off-putting: "Midway through the production of Mr. Corman — created, written, directed, and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt — the pandemic hit, which not only shuttered production on the series but also gave JGL an opportunity to work the pandemic into his storyline," says Dustin Rowles. "On the basis of the back half of the series, all set during the pandemic, it also apparently gave JGL a new perspective and allowed him to see his character from the first half of the series for what he is: A whiny, self-obsessed, sad sack. It’s unclear if that was the direction the series was already headed. Maybe he could have achieved the same result without the pandemic, but there’s a noticeable shift midway through the show that feels like the product of someone who spent enough time with a character to realize how insufferable he is and then decides to change the direction of the series accordingly. In the opening half, JGL’s character, Josh Corman, is painfully mopey, anxiety-riddled, and a real downer. While he remains as such in the back half, at least he gains some awareness, which has a transformative effect on the series."
• Mr. Corman is Gordon-Levitt's perfect comeback vehicle: "Gordon-Levitt updates the familiar 'sad man story' by pushing Josh to look beyond himself for salvation, adding the kind of whimsy that the protagonist might scoff at, but actually creates on his own," says Sulagna Misra. "The magic of the series comes from the emotional and romantic asides that stem from Josh’s psyche. He admits in the first episode that he hasn’t played piano in a year, but once he does, that effort kicks off his season-long story. Gordon-Levitt is perfect for this role—he displayed remarkable nuance early on in 3rd Rock From The Sun, and his turn in (500) Days of Summer still feels fresh after 15 years—but you can see why he’s avoided taking on a singular lead role in a TV series until he created his own show. The play between music and imagery needs to be sold wholesale by its main actor, since most of the other characters are more self-assured in their personal identities, at least compared to Josh. The actor can tap into a kind of menacing anxiety and self-pity in a way that keeps even the audience at arm’s length, which makes his attempts to connect feel more earned. The breaks from Josh’s perspective add another layer, showing that his sad sack worldview is remarkably truncated, even when he’s right about things (like wearing masks)."
• Mr. Corman is ultimately about the struggle to connect with other people — and to feel connected to the world itself: "Josh is floundering, but he’s not alone in that," says Nina Metz. "We can all be so difficult to read, so difficult to please, so difficult to be around. Maybe we own up to that, maybe we don’t. (Josh does a little of both, probably more of the latter than the former.) We’re social animals and our lives are better when we have a sense of community, or even just one true friend or lover. Without that, maybe we’re left angry and lost and floating in a limbo state. The show mimics that experience, sometimes literally, with the actors occasionally inhabiting a hallucinatory, two-dimensional photorealistic animation landscape, which feels both visually conspicuous and pointless. That’s another of the show’s downfalls. Gordon-Levitt always has a wonderfully uncomfortable quality when he’s on screen and that’s not a bad thing, especially in the first episode...But (in the middle of the season)  the show steers itself in an entirely different direction, and I use the word “direction” loosely because Mr. Corman lacks the traditional structure of a TV series. It just sort of meanders. Late in the season COVID rears its ugly head, which only exacerbates the anxiety Josh is already battling. And then the show meanders some more."
• Gordon-Levitt elevates Mr. Corman, though it's the anti-Ted Lasso: "The idea of TV series indulging the creative whims of movie stars is hardly new, but Gordon-Levitt brings a level of ambition to the storytelling that isn't just dabbling," says Brian Lowry. "That said, Mr. Corman represents a thin premise -- the travails of thirtysomethings, after all, had an entire 1980s series devoted to it -- so its charms almost entirely consist of small moments and its protagonist's thinly concealed angst. Pencils down, the show earns a better-than-passing grade, delivering more satisfaction than the syllabus would suggest. Consider Mr. Corman one of those instances where Gordon-Levitt and company do enough extra-credit work to legitimately class up an otherwise basic course."
• Mr. Corman feels like a companion piece to 500 Days of Summer: "Mr. Corman has trouble finding much of anything new to say about the overwhelming ennui of a thirtysomething year-old man feeling stuck in his own boring life," says Caroline Framke. "Sometimes the series demonstrates some awareness that Josh’s depression doesn’t excuse his selfishness, usually through another character like his sister or ex-fiancée (Juno Temple) calling him out in a burst of frustration. These moments are frequently a relief, but quickly repetitive as Mr. Corman becomes a slog through Josh’s overwhelming self-hatred. The audience doesn’t have to like the main character for the show to work, but at the very least, its center of gravity should be more nuanced and compelling than this one. The most interesting aspect of Mr. Corman, whether accidentally or on purpose, is how the Apple TV Plus show reveals its undeniable thematic ties to one of Gordon-Levitt’s most enduring roles to date. A prolific actor in his youth, Gordon-Levitt became a pop-culture avatar in 2009 as Tom, the platonic ideal of a rom-com 'nice guy' in Marc Webb’s 500 Days of Summer. The insufferable discourse around that movie and its central Manic Pixie Dream Girl (played with lilting charm by Zooey Deschanel) has been litigated to death and back, so no need to resurrect it here. But in watching Mr. Corman, it became impossible not to think of 500 Days of Summer, whether because of how it also lets Gordon-Levitt play in sporadic breaks from reality or, more pressingly, how much Josh evokes a bleak future version of Tom. Unlike 500 Days of Summer, Gordon-Levitt got to shape Mr. Corman as its creator as well as its star, but it still seems like a companion piece picking up 11 years later (and that, not for nothing, might have been better off as a finite film versus a series)."
• Maybe Gordon-Levitt has too many jobs in making Mr. Corman: "When the premiere episode of Apple TV+’s Mr. Corman ends, the first four names in the credits all belong to Joseph Gordon-Levitt," says Alan Sepinwall. "He directed it, wrote it, created it, and stars in it. He’s also a producer and helps write the music performed by his title character, a fifth grade teacher in Van Nuys, California, who can’t entirely let go of his dreams of rock stardom. Given all of the hats Gordon-Levitt wore on the project, it seems quite probable he was also baking delicious snickerdoodles every day for the craft services table. The combined director-writer-star role has become an unsurprising one in Peak TV, thanks to shows like Girls (Lena Dunham), Russian Doll (Natasha Lyonne), and Better Things (Pamela Adlon). And Gordon-Levitt has done the multihyphenate thing before, on both his feature directorial debut, the 2013 comedy Don Jon, and on his 2014 series HitRECord on TV, where he got to add 'genial variety-show host' to his list of skills. Gordon-Levitt has been famous since he was a teenager, playing old-beyond-his-years alien Tommy Solomon on the hit sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, and he seamlessly transitioned into adult roles in a way that eludes many child stars. Yet when he does a project like Don Jon or, now, Mr. Corman, it feels as if he’s still trying to prove that he can do more than what we expect of him. On the one hand, that ambition seems well-suited to a character like Josh Corman, who has had to adjust to a more mundane life than the one he wanted, and who can’t resist locking himself in the bedroom of the apartment he shares with best friend Victor (Arturo Castro) to try out some new electronic-music ideas on what seems like an endless supply of instruments. On the other, a lot of Mr. Corman seems to be confusing 'best directed' for 'most directed,' and many of the techniques Gordon-Levitt and his collaborators (including Aurora Guerrero, who directed the two episodes JGL didn’t) deploy — handheld subjective camerawork, photo-collage special effects, long scenes filmed in a single take, frequent lens flare, and much more — ultimately feel out of tune with a very modest story about a man coming to terms with his very modest life. Or maybe it’s just that Josh’s story ultimately isn’t interesting enough to support a series, no matter how much Gordon-Levitt and company try to dress it up."
• Mr. Corman taps into millennial angst as it attempts to reach for something deeper: "The idea: Josh doesn’t need the high-stakes drama of a grand romance or a murder to solve or bad guys to fight," says Jennifer Keishin Armstrong. "In a time of global warming, pandemics and dozens of other dark headlines every day, each of us is fighting a battle with the highest stakes possible each moment we’re alive on Earth. The series begins, deliberately, in August 2019, the most profound worldwide shakeup of everyday life looming silently on the horizon. We don’t know if we’ll see Josh deal with that directly, but we know what he doesn’t. From this vantage point, we can see that the trappings of modern existence are just numbing us to reality."
• Mr. Corman is the latest Peak TV series to have a key standalone episode: "We need to find a name for the increasingly common phenomenon of format-breaking standalone episodes in which primary characters are set aside so audiences can see the world through the eyes of a supporting character or a new set of characters entirely," says Daniel Fienberg. "It should probably be named, in some way, after Netflix’s Master of None, which did this with Lena Waithe’s character in the 'Thanksgiving' episode (season 2) — and then, when Waithe’s Denise became the star in season 3, did it again with Naomi Ackie’s character in a standout episode revolving around IVF. It’s a genre of episodes that includes 'GaTa' from Dave, 'Andre and Sarah' from Forever and 'A Dark Quiet Death' from Mythic Quest. The best-case scenario is that in expanding its perspective, the show gains in depth. The worst-case scenario is that the standalone episode makes you realize you’ve been wasting time with the main character, and offers a glimpse of an alternative series you’d rather be watching instead. Four episodes into Apple TV+’s Mr. Corman, the series temporarily leaves Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s anxiety-ridden protagonist Josh Corman for a sweetly funny half-hour spent primarily with Josh’s roommate Victor (Arturo Castro), a UPS deliveryman who spends custody weekends with his moody teen daughter (Miley Delgado). My initial instinct was to think that the episode, titled 'Mr. Morales,' fell into that 'worst-case scenario' category since Josh had already become a bit of a pill. But it turns out to be more of a transitional episode. Over the course of its 10 half-hour-ish installments, Mr. Corman never nails an overall narrative momentum or achieves true consistency, but the second half of the season features a few smartly conceived episodes and several audacious visual flourishes. It gets better."
• The problem is that there’s not much more to Mr. Corman than Gordon-Levitt moping around: "The show feels as aimless as its lead character is, and it’s hard to pin down what it’s trying to say, exactly," says Dave Nemetz. "Josh starts having panic attacks, and he’s disconnected from everyone else in his life, so we’re stuck inside his head… and that’s not a pleasant place to be. ('The world is completely f—ked,' he cheerfully muses at one point.) Broad City‘s Arturo Castro plays his roommate Victor, and Debra Winger plays his judgmental mom, but it’s mostly just Josh on his own, and the episodes feel claustrophobic as a result. Josh does start to pick up his instruments and try music again, which is a promising story angle — but that’s fleeting, and it’s not long before he’s back to moping again. Mr. Corman comes from A24, a production company known for daring, boundary-pushing fare, and this does have an indie, idiosyncratic feel to it, with quirky music, jittery handheld camerawork and animated detours. But it lacks focus, as if Gordon-Levitt had a hundred different ideas scribbled down in his notebook and tried to cram them all into one show. And when it aims high and gets weird, it gets really weird: In what has to be one of the strangest TV scenes of the year, Episode 3 ends with a fantastical song-and-dance number featuring Josh and his mom singing an original duet about mothers and sons. Like… huh? I did appreciate those glimmers of something bigger and more ambitious — we could use more proudly weird TV shows, frankly — but the weird bits are never quite integrated into a cohesive story."
• Mr. Corman is like 10 episodes of a Reddit "Am I the A**hole?" thread: "The core story struggles to match its creative veneer — and the main issue is Josh," says Ben Travers. "Single-minded and smart, he’s the kind of guy with all the answers for everyone else, and no clue what to do with himself. Mr. Corman only comes alive in the classroom; the rest of the time, Josh is judging his mom for her choice in partners, his sister (a perfectly cast Shannon Woodward) for her newfound faith, and his friend for prioritizing his livelihood (as a UPS driver) over his health (or, more accurately, over Josh’s health — yes, he’s that selfish). Self-centered, stubborn, and prone to repeating the same mistakes, it’s not that Mr. Corman is unlikable — I mean, he is, but in a world where Succession is the only good show on television, that doesn’t matter. The issue stems from Josh being a bad TV character; an overly familiar protagonist who’s slow to change. Not only does Mr. Corman skip the adventure that whisks Josh (and viewers) out of his boring life, it lacks enough fresh insights into listless and unsatisfied thirtysomething white guys to make watching that life rewarding."
• Mr. Corman deserves credit for being so unique: "Mr. Corman is the type of show that some people will despise," says Ralph Jones. "Written by, starring, and often directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, it boasts a bold – some would say self-indulgent – freedom that shows not helmed by a major Hollywood movie star do not: characters break out into song in one episode, for only a few minutes; a handful of scenes are a mixture of real footage and rotoscope animation; and, to put it bluntly, the show is about a guy who’s actually pretty annoying most of the time. So why is this a four-star review? Because Mr .Corman is a remarkably ambitious achievement that doesn’t always stick the landing but provides the audience with a wildly unpredictable spectacle while it’s in the air. It certainly isn’t a comedy, as it claims to be, but as a drama it’s unique."
• Mr. Corman never seems to quite know what it wants to say: "Could TV shows stop attempting to tackle the millennial experience when they have nothing revelatory to say about it?" says Roxana Hadidi. “Mr. Corman centers Josh at the middle of one millennial ritual per episode—a one-night stand after meeting at a bar, a road trip with Ruth, a conversation between Josh and Beth about their different religious beliefs, a fight with health care companies and collection agencies—but they all follow a tedious rhythm in which everyone talks at Josh about his feelings, but he never volunteers them himself. Practically every conversation Josh has involves the other person bemoaning his cynicism and pessimism, but that dynamic gets old fast when Josh as a character seems like an amalgamation of Twitter cliches about 30somethings. A flaw of Gordon-Levitt’s performance is that his emotions and the show’s dialogue never seem in sync: sometimes he’s too venomous for innocuous lines; sometimes he’s too subdued for particularly cruel jabs. The show doesn’t stick to Josh as a misunderstood nice guy or Josh as a low-key asshole, instead jumping between those identities and failing to establish the central character as someone we’re supposed to at least somewhat care about. Those diverging world views would already be a lot to tackle. But Mr. Corman also adds in aggressively twee animated flourishes, whirls Gordon-Levitt around a couple of songs, wastes time with an incredibly facile parallel-universe standalone episode, and builds up to a final-episode reveal that hangs all of Josh’s issues on his white privilege. A noticeable pattern is that nearly every person who criticizes Josh’s woe-is-me attitude is a person of color, most incisively the Korean American Emily (Jamie Chung). In a scene that Mr. Corman clearly thinks is allyship, Emily makes a broad generalization about Josh’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic that is not just staggeringly dismissive, but also disrespectful to the people of color for whom the show thinks Emily is speaking."
• Mr. Corman is the perfect example of a TV show that improves the more you stick with it: Mr. Corman "starts out bumpy. I didn’t care much for episodes one or two, and three signified only a slight improvement," says Jen Chaney. "But by the end of the ten-episode first season, when the pandemic syncs up with the narrative timeline, it becomes apparent that Gordon-Levitt laid out the arc of Mr. Corman to make a point about precisely the elements that may initially give some viewers pause. Because it’s releasing in batches — the first two episodes drop Friday, with the rest to roll out weekly — getting to that point admittedly will require some patience"
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt used Mr. Corman to reflect on his own luck -- to take stock of his own accomplishments, his own anxieties and even his own unfulfilled dreams: It is the most personal project of his career, he says, “a culmination of everything I learned in my life about making art and telling stories.” That's why it's no coincidence that his character Josh Corman has a similar-sounding name. “When I’m playing Josh, I don’t have to think about what to do. I know,” he says. Gordon-Levitt also says he wanted Mr. Corman to showcase its actors, allowing them to breathe and improvise. “We have far fewer cuts in Mr. Corman than most shows and movies,” he says. “And part of that is wanting to really make it an actors-forward show.”
• Gordon-Levitt sees streaming services as the new indie films: “If you were gonna tell a messy character’s story like this, it had to be an indie film, and you hope it gets into festivals, you hope it plays at an arthouse cinema somewhere," he says. "And now, you get to tell stories like this on a big global streaming service like Apple, and I’m really grateful.” He believes that these streamers are partially why television has been so inspiring to him recently. “To be honest, some of my most favorite works of filmmaking lately are series like Atlanta and Fleabag," he says. "I get so drawn into them and I love the long format where you can really dive deeper and deeper and deeper into a character and go off on tangents that feel like real life, because real life doesn’t stick to a linear plot.”
• Why casting Debra Winger to play his mom was so important to Gordon-Levitt: "When I told my mom that Debra Winger was going to play my mom, she was, I'm not exaggerating, she was moved," he says. "Because Debra Winger is a meaningful artist. You know what I mean? Let's face it, the history of Hollywood's portrayal of female characters is not great. And Debra Winger decades ago was already saying, 'I'm not going to be reduced to a plot device or a pretty thing. I'm going to play a full human being.' And she does it so brilliantly. And I just think she's such a wonderful artist and I'm honored and delighted that she played my mom in Mr. Corman."
• Gordon-Levitt intended Mr. Corman as a tribute to teachers: “When I was thinking, ‘Well if I hadn’t happened to get the breaks that I’ve had in show business and this wasn’t the way that I was able to earn my living, what would I do?'” he says. “I’ve always thought that teachers should have the glory that entertainers do. I wish we lived in a world where teachers were the celebrated ones, and maybe this is one miniscule baby step in that direction. I hope that Mr. Corman can really valorize teachers.”