courtesy of howtomakeitinamerica.com
I can't quite put my finger on it but HBO's new show How to Make It In America is awesome. There is no single thing that when I watch it I saw wow that's good. The actors are very well cast and believable, but at no point has any one of them wowed me like say, Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. It seems that each one is being themselves.
Maybe that's the secret to the show: it's absolute realism. You could tell me this is a reality TV show and I would almost believe you.
This is Mark Wahlberg's second show on HBO; his first, the very famous Entourage. HTMIIA is like the anti-Entourage. It follows Ben and Cam in their quest to make it as clothing designers with their vintage line "Crisp." Ben is a design school drop out, and Cam is his Latino best friend. Ben pays the rent by working at Barneys while Cam doesn't really have a job, he's just that guy who can get things when you need it and does odd things here and there, an urban Swiss Army knife. Through this there is a loose tangle of interactions with their friend Domingo (played by Kid Cudi) who has all the connections to parties and what not. Then there is Ben's ex Rachel, an interior designer, her new boyfriend, crazy boss, and her seemingly still deep connection with Ben. We get to see Cam's recently un-incarcerated cousin Rene (played by the sinisterly hilarious Luis Guzman) trying to stay straight and promote a new energy drink. Finally, there is Ben's high school classmate Kappo (played by Eddie Kaye Thomas aka Finch from American Pie), who works for a hedge fund and wants desperately to be hip but comically cannot cover up the nerdiness that made him so successful.
The show is about struggling, not in any heroic or tragic way, but simply a very American way. The characters don't have huge problems: Ben and Cam need a jeans sample made, Rene wants more people to buy his drink, Rachel's boyfriend was a jerk to her, Kappo can't get into a club. Everything that has happened in the show should not be interesting to us. I mean at least with Entourage there were Ferraris and very hot, very naked girls. In HTMIIA there might be a few four-letter words and a Range Rover borrowed from a friend.
In truth the greatness of the show comes from the connection anyone can feel to the characters. I watch the show and say yeah I can identify with what's going on in the episode. Yeah sure I've never tried to start a clothing line, but I can identify with Ben and Cam's frustration of being so close to completing that next step, finally getting there, and realizing they'd only gone about 100 feet in a marathon. It does a great job of exploring the middle American experience. They know where their meals are coming from, they have a place to sleep, yet things aren't easy. They have their problems, but they also have their celebrations. It's not one big party, but there's a reason it's called the middle: there are peaks and valleys, but they aren't huge, and they average out to be pretty level. And that's why I can't stop watching this show.
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