Emma and Max

Last year I saw Emma and Max, a play by Todd Solondz, at the Flea Theater. It is a tight focused look at the life of a very privileged couple, and sort of an expose on on the labor and suffering of others that is the foundation of their comforts. It concerns their nanny, a black woman who has endured severe trauma and the rage that lies underneath her servile demeanor.

The script and the acting were all very good, and I loved the sets and the way they were moved by Brittany, the nanny, in a slow, defeated, labored way. The presentation of the couple's obliviousness and their narcissism was both funny and disturbing. At the same time, however, it was familiar and cliched, a well-worn trump in contemporary drama.

The Favourite

Earlier this year I saw The Favourite in the theater. I loved it. It's by the same director of The Lobster, and has a similar feel to it, even thought it's very different. It is weirdly comical, but also incredibly dark, about power games and distrust. The leads are three hard, ambitious women who are in command of themselves, and this is unusual to see in movies. Queen Anne is less in command of herself than the other two, but because she is the queen she holds all the power that everyone gravitates around. I very much liked this movie.

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital

In January I read Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, a short novel by Lorrie Moore. It is so good! I think her prose is intense and just crackles. It's very dynamic and sharp writing. Very well-observed. It's about two friends in high school in the 70s and the course their lives take. The narrator's personality emerges later in the book in a sad, uncomfortable, unpleasant way that kind of illuminates the whole thing.

You

I could not put down You by Caroline Kepnes. The prose is riveting, driven by a crazed momentum with some truly beautiful moments. The story is creepy, harrowing, but not essentially interesting. What makes this kind of amazing is the voice of the narrator, the second person rant/manifesto/confession/love letter. It's a great ride and I may read the sequel, just because I'm not ready to say goodbye to Joe.

Wine Country

I love Amy Poehler and all the actresses in Wine Country. As a GenXer I was really looking forward to this. There were a handful of truly funny moments, and it's good spirited. But in the end it was only meh. Formulaic, obvious, strained, and at times depressing.

A Colony in a Nation

A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes is an excellent long-form essay on race and policing in our era. It provides a historical analysis, making an analogy between how lower income urban communities of color are separated from the middle class mainstream and how this boundary is enforced by the government through order maintenance policing. In a relatively short book, Chris Hayes explores these problems with nuance and compassion. He makes what is at heart a moral argument without being heavy handed at all.

Conversations with Friends

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney is very good. It's about two young, college aged friends in Dublin. The narrator, Frances, is emotionally closed off in some ways but very observant and in some ways very self aware. It is about her relationship with a married man, and shifts in her friendship with Bobbi. Rooney does a great job describing different social dynamics and tensions in a way that made me uncomfortable but in a good way. I was surprisingly engrossed and read then novel quickly. I did have trouble with the very end and wish I could talk to someone about what they thought.