40-year-old hepatologist Toby Fleischman (Jesse Eisenberg) saves the lives of his patients every day, but is powerless to save his own marriage to Rachel (Claire Danes). Behind them, now 15 years of difficult family life – fragments of memories of how they once had a good time together, and two growing children.
As ex-wives try to build their lives around the new 2-1=1 formula and portray their parental responsibilities, something strange happens – Rachel disappears. That is, even before that, he may rearrange his plans at the last minute, be on a business trip, or leave suddenly, but this sudden disappearance is very unusual even for him. Before the alarm goes off, and Toby, bewildered by the loss of his ex, tries to enjoy his single life to the fullest: going on dates, hanging out on dating apps for hours, and finally reconnecting with fellow students he hasn’t seen. for years.
However, Toby’s personal life is becoming more and more difficult to cope with all these voluminous work and parenting duties alongside the resurgent source of his personal life, and he finally asks himself: Where is Rachel, is she in big trouble?
Fleishman in Trouble is the first novel of journalist Teffi Brodesser-Akner, in which she began her solo literary career. The book was published in 2019 and instantly became a bestseller by major publications: The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, and The Guardian were everywhere. But the success of Teffi’s book is not accidental: the story he writes is a colorful kaleidoscope of the bright, original and deeply painful voices of our contemporaries, the inhabitants of the megacities, lost in the city’s vast streets, full of their own thoughts and lives. bitter disappointment.
The family’s story (and it’s unclear which of the two wives is in trouble and needs to be rescued from the name to the end) is a recognizable confession through the purely Woody Allen narrative, where the funny and the tragic come together. are closely intertwined with each other. In a minute, a self-revealing monologue of the hero falls on you, and he sincerely admits: the love trip he took after the divorce, the attempt at self-affirmation, the desire to renew his youthful enthusiasm, because in his youth he did not even receive such attention from women.
She then reflects on her painful divorce, the halving process when two people are forced to separate after so many years together. Divorce turns Toby’s world upside down, with a world turned upside down that perfectly mirrors the series’ not-so-creative but very atmospheric entry.
In the book, the main narrator is Libby, one of Toby’s two close student friends and played by Lizzy Caplan. She was a journalist in the past and is now a wife and mother. Libby is also envious of the event horizon that opens before her, interpreting what is happening from her own perspective, in a way sympathetic to her friend (and thus forcing Toby and us to sympathize as well). His days are boring and long – and this total predictability is unbearably sickening.
In the series, several off-screen voices are heard at once – Toby and Libby, but Rachel is humiliatingly quiet, who of course has something to say on the subject. The seemingly unreliable narrator trick will come in handy later in the series, when Danes’ character also needs to share his perspective on the situation.
In the book, Libby says: If you want to tell a woman’s story, do it through a man’s story. And through the elaborate image of Eisenberg’s hero, images of the women around him gradually appear in history: complex, different, but believable and original.
It seems that “Fleishman in Trouble” is the same talk about what matters to a healthy person. They are witty, somewhere sarcastic and resentful, and somewhere hysterical and piercing monologues about what a person is going through, compelled to reconstruct him in the middle of life. To re-search your identity apart from your usual partner, to rekindle intimacy with old friends, to find a common language with children whose experience is traumatic for them, and to learn to believe that one day the heart area will not hurt so much.
Teffi Brodesser-Akner, who also acted as the showrunner of the project, is ideal for such stories. She skillfully balances the two poles of life when everything is unbearably serious and laughter – even tears – is impossible to contain.
Fleishman in Trouble is a gripping drama where each episode is like a good therapy session. In the final credits you exhale, wipe your tears and say to yourself: everything will pass, this too will pass.