“Living with yourself”
A TV show review
CLONE. The Netflix series “Living with Yourself” stars Paul Rudd as two seperate roles throughout the show. The series is a dark comedy drama that spans for eight episodes. “The convention of acting against myself, I’d never done anything like that. That seemed like it would be a fun thing to do, or at least attempt to do. But the show itself, ultimately, was what sold me,” Rudd said to Local Boston News.
“Living with yourself” is a delightfully creative comedy that not only explores the question of what makes us human but also what we value in each other as people.
The eight-episode series begins with the image of the main character Miles (Paul Rudd) pulling himself out of the ground in an unmarked grave. While the idea of suddenly waking up in the middle of the forest is a terrifying concept alone, it is one of the many instances of dark comedy on the show’s part to make light of such horrific events
The show follows Miles, a man who has achieved little to no upward motion in his career and has been completely ignoring his wife’s wants and needs; out of fear of losing everything due to his self-destructive nature, Miles goes to the “Top Happy Spa” in order to get a fresh start. After waking up in the middle of nowhere Miles goes home to find that there is another version of him in.
It turns out that the Top Happy Spa cloned Miles to create a better version of himself. The cloned Miles in ways such as he doesn’t need reading/ driving classes is more motivated in his work and is a better partner to his wife. Now Miles has to live with himself and try to keep his clone a secret to his wife and work.
The show switches perspectives each episode in order to show how both the original and the cloned Miles feels about this situation. This helps the show not feel stale by giving us both sides of this strange predicament.
One of the show’s best qualities is the acting of Paul Rudd. With him playing two contrasting roles, one being an optimistic, starry-eyed clone who was literally born yesterday, while also playing a schlumpy depressed middle-aged man who wants to get his act together but just doesn’t know how to do it.
While the show does fall into the necessary tropes of any movie including cloning, with quotes like “you’re me” and “I’m you”. The show brings in multiple different ideas and themes to the table that you can’t really dive into for an hour to a two-hour film. One example is how you don’t feel worthy of success when you haven’t earned it, this also taking from the idea of “what if you could be in two places at once.” Do we love each other for our strengths or for our weaknesses?
“Living with yourself” may not be the most original concept in television history, but its performances and neat situations help bring a subtle charm makes up for its lack of originality.
