A show that’s been on my watch-list since last year. Popping up on my list of recommendations several times but stored away as something to savour. I finally waded into this series and am still reeling with the impact that it has left on me. A seminal black comedy on urban isolation in the rare genre of tragi-comedy that boasts a razor-sharp script, deadpan wit, is decidedly daring and a leading lady who I am in love with!
ASHOK’s FIVE reasons to watch #Fleabag streaming on #AmazonPrimeVideo, winner of the Emmy and Golden Globe awards for the best series in the comedy genre and for best leading role for 31-year-old playwright and performer #PhoebeWallerBridge. The show was nominated for 11 Emmy awards. Co-produced by BBC and Amazon Studios, this is the story of a flawed woman trying to come to terms with the loss of her best friend. Along the way, she “does not know what to do with herself” and ends up sleeping with multiple men, picking up a scrap with her greasy brother-in-law, thinks nothing of stealing and ultimately finding love with a clergyman.
1. #PhoebeWallerBridge is enough reason to watch #Fleabag. She is perfect in her role as the emotionally and sexually honest woman who is grappling with life. She looks the part and dazzles in her red lipstick and the knowing wink to the camera as she breaks the Fourth Wall and establishes an amazing camaraderie with the viewer and makes you her confidante. She is witty, quick on the repartee and blessed with an amazing sense of humour. The series never reveals her real name and some of the characters are also left unnamed, the arse**** guy and the Hot Priest included, and this is really quirky. She is someone who is scared of letting the idea of feminism down and yet does not really know how to deal with the idea of feminism. The sexual depravity is only a coping mechanism for her. In her own words, she is a “greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman”
Season 1 introduces the one relative with whom she has a bonding, her sister Claire (Sian Clifford). It is in Season 2 that the character comes into her own – a successful professional stuck in a marriage with a slimy husband Martin (Brett Gelman in a stand-out performance) but finally finds her escape.
2. #Fleabag in agonizingly perfect in every aspect, be it the wonderful casting or the writing and the editing. The editing work in particular is noteworthy – the manner in which the jokes are cut off mid-way or the extreme close-ups of the face during the physically intimate scenes. Fleabag’s conversations breaking the Fourth Wall are nicely done, a wink and a nod here, a cheeky one-liner there or an emphatic nod of the head at other times. #AndrewScott plays the Hot Priest and is charming and effusive as a man of god. #KirstenScottThomas as Belinda and #FionaShaw as the shrink play wonderful cameos. Scott apparently jumped at the role without even asking for the script based on the success of the first season.
#OliviaColman in the role of the evil stepmom outdoes herself and the tension between her and the daughters is riveting.
3. #Fleabag is absolutely hilarious! Yes, the scenes around the headless figurine that she steals repeatedly is funny. Malayalam cinema addicts will remember a film called #JuniorMandrake based on how a bust brought bad luck unless passed on and accepted whole-heartedly. But sample my top five moments: Remember the scene where Fleabag is getting off on Obama’s speech and gets caught? Or when she says she doesn’t believe in God and at that very precise moment the portrait of Jesus in the background slips off the wall. Or the scene where she unwittingly takes off her coat during the interview with the bank manager and reveals her bra. Claire’s haircut, the guinea-pig themed café, the bonding with the bank manager, the family dinner and the confessional are some of my best moments about the show. The series had its moments of controversy as well, especially the one in the confession booth.
4. I think the pithy 23 odd minute episodes also helped. Quite amazing how much they managed to pack into each episode. And just two seasons and 12 episodes in all for #Fleabag to bid goodbye to the camera. I think the ending was just perfect with the Priest having picked God over love, the appearance of the fox and the wistful stare back at the camera before she moves away. In a world where every series is trying to stretch seasons a little bit more and leaving you with a twist at the end that is often forced, #Fleabag ends leaving you aching for more!
5. #Fleabag is funny, tragic and downright rude. What #PheobeWallerBridge manages to do wonderfully well is to provide a voice for the travails of women as they manage anxiety, pain, discrimination and emotions. As Belinda the successful businesswoman played by Kristin Scott-Thomas says “Women are born with pain built-in. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives. Men don’t. They have to seek it out. They invent all these gods and demons and things just so they can feel guilty.”
Spoiler Alert but there is a scene in the last episode where Fleabag professes her love and the Priest takes her arm and says, “It’ll pass”. An example of fantastic writing. Fleabag is the perfect antithesis to everything traditionally British that includes being prudish, politically correct and morally upright. As the series comes to an end, you crave for more but on the other hand you are strangely relieved that they are not stretching it thin into yet another season. You feel even better to find that the close of the series stays true to a philosophy that is as real as it gets and not clouded in the reductionist philosophy of the perfect ending. You cannot afford to miss Fleabag; don’t even think about it!
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