Mr. Corman

Mr. Corman has a few missteps, most notably in an episode that tries to take on the bureaucracy of insurance companies, but the series more than recovers in the last few episodes.

Mr. Corman is painfully relatable to anyone who has ever looked around at their life and wondered how they got there. It’s quite the opposite of its fellow AppleTV+ show Ted Lasso, but it’s still a character study that’s worth firing up.

It’s clear from the start of “Mr. Corman” that the laughs in this 10-episode series will be few but the smiles of recognition frequent. It’s a testament to the complex charms of this series that those smiles are as often summoned by bleak moments as happier ones.

Mr. Corman has the potential to become something truly great and powerful, a modern-day mirror to the glorifying of perceived trauma that has come to define so many narratives. You just have to give it space to get there.

Given the weight of the subject matter, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the show is light on belly laughs, but Gordon-Levitt’s engaging presence and sharply observed scripts make Mr Corman the sort of teacher you really want to spend your extracurricular hours with.

Mr. Corman's realism that is most compelling in this indulgent but moving character study of disappointment, anxiety and, ever so possibly, hope. [16-29 Aug 2021, p.5]

It’s commendable and fascinating that Mr. Corman’s purpose comes into sharper focus as it progresses. But that doesn’t completely compensate for the show’s flaws. ... Still, Mr. Corman is ambitious, well-acted, and committed to showing respect for and curiosity about all of its characters. When you think it’s going to zig all the way through ten episodes, it zags on you. It is by no means perfect. But it shouldn’t be dismissed.

There is, in fact, a lot of awkwardness along the way, including Josh's interactions with his mother (Debra Winger), and an ex-girlfriend (Juno Temple), who eventually comes into the story too.

It ambles along pleasingly without ever worrying about things like plot development. You can watch a couple of episodes, as I did, and come away feeling both “meh” and “yeah!”

A show that resists immediacy, but rewards patience. These opening episodes don’t do it justice. But stick with it, and you will find a promising, prickly newcomer.

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.

Good intentions are commendable, even if Josh’s painfully slow acknowledgement makes for impenetrable packaging. Spending five-plus hours watching a very average man inch toward slightly greater self-awareness doesn’t make for the most powerful TV experience.

[Josh's] depressive narcissism is central to the story, and it might have felt the honest thing to make him such a determined little rain cloud, and the actor does not hold back. But it also puts a black hole at the center of the story, one hard to care about. ... At the same time, Gordon-Levitt has surrounded himself with great players and given them good scenes to play.

There’s nothing wrong with telling small stories on television. Many of the multihyphenate shows which Mr. Corman resembles are all about smallness. This small story, though, doesn’t feel worthy of the time it takes to experience it, nor the varied talents put on display by its creator, writer, director, and star.

“Mr. Corman” is an unwieldy, inconsistent show that sometimes clicks together as a result of its big creative swings, but mostly suffers because of their irregularity.

“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.

“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. ... Even the presence of Debra Winger as Josh’s mom (a woman who refuses to indulge her son’s worst traits while also gaslighting him about legitimate grievances) and Juno Temple as his ex (a character who feels too ill-defined to really work) feel like wasted opportunities.

In the very first episode, Corman says “most people don’t have anything interesting to say,” and yet the show seems completely oblivious to the fact that Mr. Corman also has nothing worthwhile to give its audience.

Almost none of it feels genuine. It’s the kind of cloying, superficial writing that too rarely digs into its characters, just laying situations at their feet and allowing viewers to wonder why they should care. Everything is overly scripted, and it is so in a way that’s constantly commenting on the state of being a thirtysomething in the 2020s instead of just working from character.