- Network: HBO
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 12, 2020
Critic Reviews
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Call them liberals, Democrats, anti-Trumpers or just plain fed up. They’re losing their minds and this awkward, uneven, funny and sometimes moving program from satirist and playwright Paul Rudnick and director Jay Roach (“Recount,” “Bombshell”) attempts to capture the progressive zeitgeist. ... Sharynn Tarrows (Dever) is exhausted after a 14-hour shift, and her testimony is so moving it redeems some of the weaker aspects of “Coastal Elites.”
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Rudnick's efforts to evolve "Coastal Elites" from a live stage production a montage of quarantine solo performances for HBO are apparent even so, and the actors' handle that pivot as expertly as one can. But in making this necessary transition the casualty is the sense of commiseration a "Coastal Elites" audience might have gotten from being in the company of likeminded souls indulging in an evening of theater.
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An uneven, at times suffocating set of sanctimony from screenwriter and novelist Paul Rudnick.
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Sharp though some of the writing is, “Coastal Elites” never challenges the moral superiority of its characters, and so they mostly come off as predictable, making predictable points.
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“Coastal Elites” consists of five separate monologues, all delivered straight to camera by some of our finest actors, who unfortunately are sunk by the material despite the strength of their performances.
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Coastal Elites is both cathartic and insufferable. It’s provocative and annoying. It’s full of clever insight, yet it also might as well be a banshee cry in an echo chamber.
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Coastal Elites’ flaws begin with its uninspired screenplay and blandly written ensemble. ... Even with the A-listers populating its cast, Coastal Elite’s monologues are profoundly boring.
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Too often infuriatingly loud, overplays too many dramatic beats and takes what should have been a series of intimate monologues and makes them cartoonish. Directed with no real sense of volume control by Jay Roach from a script of wildly varying quality by Paul Rudnick, Coastal Elites is airing as a 90-minute feature on HBO, some acting exercises loosely bound in a pandemic sausage casing.
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“Coastal Elites” isn’t nearly introspective enough to get past its semi-ironic title to say anything new about the people or feelings it’s trying to examine. ... Watching “Coastal Elites,” it’s strange to know that it so insistently labels itself a satire when it’s so painfully earnest in practice.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 1 out of 10
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Mixed: 2 out of 10
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Negative: 7 out of 10
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Sep 12, 2020
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Sep 14, 2020