TV Review: Living With Yourself

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Plot: Miles is a man struggling in life. When he undergoes a novel spa treatment that promises to make him a better person, he finds he’s been replaced by a new and improved version of himself. As he deals with the unintended consequences of his actions, Miles finds he must fight for his wife Kate (Aisling Bea), his career, and his very identity.

Review: I love it when a show comes out of nowhere and just works. Living With Yourself is a prime example of a concept that is typically the fodder for broader comedy but thanks to the mix of the right directors and writers we get something truly excellent. Scripted by Timothy Greenberg (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) and directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (BATTLE OF THE SEXES, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE), Living With Yourself may remind you of similar clone films like MULTIPLICITY and is being released right on the heels of Ang Lee's GEMINI MAN, but this is less a movie about the humorous results of cloning or the philosophical quandaries of the process but instead a look at how the different sides of each person can have dramatic effects on the people around them. Plus, it is very funny with one of Paul Rudd's best performances.

While the trailer makes it very apparent that Paul Rudd is playing two version of Miles, it does not convey the tone of the series. With this being the first television series for both Rudd and directors Dayton and Faris, Living With Yourself feels more like an extended feature film. Composed of eight episodes which each run about half an hour, Living With Yourself is almost like a four hour film but with a very distinct format. While the first episode plays from the perspective of Miles as we see how the motonony of his life has begun to wear on his marriage and career and eventually leads him to the cloning procedure that causes all of the confusion, the second episode replays the same events but from the point of view of Clone Miles. The entire series takes this approach of alternating viewpoints which shows just how easily one event can be conceived through the eyes of another character.

While the series begins with some surreal moments, accentuated by the cinematography by Darren Lew (who also lensed Netflix's Maniac), it shifts from Miles and his clone splitting duties living their shared life before the ruse is eventually discovered. But, once Miles' wife Kate (Aisling Bea) learns how the cloning came to be, the series becomes more about the existential questions of which Miles is the real one. It is not an original question but Timothy Greenberg takes the approach of showing how Miles both yearns to be like his clone and also resents him while Clone Miles questions his very existence. The series plays with these dueling mindsets which makes both versions of Miles very different characters and challenges Paul Rudd to play them with subtle differences.

Paul Rudd, who is 50 years old, is able to play both Miles as men in their late-thirties dealing with the perils of a very unique midlife crisis, one that is handled very differently by each one of them. Rudd has shown his range as an actor in dramatic roles like THE CATCHER WAS A SPY while balancing both comedy and drama in projects like THIS IS 40 and IDEAL HOME, but Living With Yourself shows just how well he can handle drama as well as comedy, which are both very prevalent in this series. Rudd runs the gamut over these eight episodes from slapstick and gross out jokes to some truly dark and sinister moments.

Anna Meredith's synth score adds to the slightly surreal nature of the series, especially as things begin to spin further and further out of control. What starts out as a funny and bizarre concept begins to show some much darker tendencies that come to a head in the final episode. It is worth noting that I loved every single episode but found the finale to be the most unbalanced as it goes way too far into the surreal comedy before pulling all the way to the most gut-wrenchingly dramatic scenes of the entire story. Still, Living With Yourself features one of the most random cameos in recent memory, a dance sequence that is one of the most romantic moments of the year, and a final twenty minutes of the finale that is truly unexpected in so many ways.

I am not sure how to categorize this series but I am glad that it exists. It is too complicated a concept for a feature film and may not have enough to justify more than the eight episode run, but it falls into that sweet spot right in the middle. Living With Yourself is a series, like Netflix's equally original Russian Doll, that could easily work as a standalone event series, but I will let you judge for yourself as to whether the final episode is the perfect closer or if it leaves it open for another story to be told. Part of me hoped for Living With Yourself to go darker that it did and another part wanted it to be funnier, but like the clone characters themselves, the finished product gives us a bit of everything and it works.

Living With Yourself premieres October 18th on Netflix.

Netflix

AMAZING

9