'Modern Love' is a good first date, but it'll let you down in the long run
The following contains mild spoilers for Modern Love Season 1.
For Modern Love and me, it was binge at first sight.
Announced last June, the anthology series based on the New York Times column of the same name instantly stole my attention. I'm a steadfast reader of the source material, and a fan of Joe Swanberg's Easy, another anthology looking at relationships in the digital age.
With a cast including Tina Fey, John Slattery, Anne Hathaway, Catherine Keener, Dev Patel, Julia Garner, and half a dozen other performers I adore, Modern Love and I seemed meant to be. I'd watch it all in one night, with a warm cup of tea and no pants. The next morning we'd try to say goodbye, but an immediate rewatch would put us back in the throws.
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Then, like a bad second date that just won't end, my beloved's flaws began to show.
It would be a "Girl meets content" fairytale, complete with schmaltzy live tweets.
I was certain that was how my experience with Modern Love would play out, and for a time, I was right. But then, like a bad second date that just won't end, my beloved's flaws began to show.
At first, all was well. Episode 1, titled "When the Doorman Is Your Main Man," is a delight — short, sweet, and charming. Episode 2, "When Cupid is a Prying Journalist," remains one of my favorite stories from the column, and the adaptation left me just as satisfied. Keener and Patel have exquisite chemistry and I'm looking forward to their inevitable buddy comedy.
Episode 3, "Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am," features an Emmy Award-worthy performance by Anne Hathaway and explores mental illness with dexterity and care. Yes, it's a bit of a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend rip-off, but that show was a masterpiece and seeing as it ended earlier this year, I will take everything I can get.
Even episode 4, "Rallying to Keep the Game Alive," kept me enthralled. Sure, the story of a strained marriage is one I at 24 can't relate to, and the script missed a lot of what made the essay so moving. Still, with Fey and Slattery at the helm, there's no use complaining. It's good, they're good, that's good, moving on.
Then came episode 5, "At the Hospital, an Interlude of Clarity" — an aptly-named record scratch that morphed my Modern Love-induced butterflies into a kind of repulsed nausea.
It is a cringe-worthy exchange that belongs nowhere near a show made in 2019.
"You ever wonder what kind of disabled person you'd be?" an abled-bodied man (John Gallagher Jr.) asks his abled-bodied date (Sofia Boutella.) She laughs.
"I'd be awful," he continues with a sly smirk. "I'd be consumed by anger and self-pity and certainly become an alcoholic ... I'd spend years in pointless litigation. And then, if any woman showed me any kindness, I'd make them regret it instantly."
"How so?" she asks, going along with the joke.
"Like, I would willfully mistake it for romantic attention and then I'd become enraged if they didn't follow through. Like full incel." He later concludes his date would be the motivational kind of person with disabilities, "an inspiration."
For anyone even vaguely versed on the subject of inclusivity, it is a cringe-worthy exchange that belongs nowhere near a show made in 2019. It is not integral to the plot, it is not essential to understanding these characters, and it does not appear at all in the original story.
This deal-breaking moment made me take a closer look at the rosy world I was immersed in, and in short order, its inadequacies appeared in droves.
Diving into episode 6, "So He Looked Like Dad. It Was Just Dinner, Right?" the series' fast and loose approach to consent and power dynamics was alarming. Again, the creative freedom taken with this story, casting a young woman who becomes emotionally involved with her older male boss as an annoying leech and not a victim, strayed far from its deft source material.
And in episode 7, "Hers Was A World of One," Modern Love's regular sidelining of characters of color became abysmally apparent. Previous episodes had cast nonwhite characters in the roles of best friend, date, or miscellaneous supporting character — all problems in their own right. But in this story, following a mixed-race gay couple, it was remarkable how quickly the narrative pivoted to focus on a white lead.
Although we'd met Brandon Kyle Goodman's character, a black man, first and the story used his desire for a family as its plot-propelling center, Modern Love soon cast him aside to focus on his white partner's journey. That's an unacceptable move, even when the white actor being pivoted for is Andrew Scott.
By the final episode, my mind was made up. Modern Love is dripping with romantic optimism and gooey meet-cutes that put a smile on my face. But it's just as overwhelmed with privilege and insensitivity.
While I'd like to judge each episode separately — and to some extent I have — this show is a package, a fact underscored by its saccharine Love Actually finale. Yes, Modern Love took me on some great dates, and I'll always cherish the time we had together. But knowing what I know now, knowing that this show wouldn't come through in the ways that matter most, I'm happy we're parting ways.
We just weren't meant to be.
Modern Love Season 1 is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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