British comedy-dramas have made a big impact in the U.S. in recent years.
2016 saw Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s hilarious and awkward Fleabag sweep the globe. 2019 was a good year for Aisling Bea’s thoughtful and moving This Way Up. 2020 saw Michaela Coel’s deeply unsettling I May Destroy You stay with us long after the series had ended.
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Maybe 2023 will be Daisy May Cooper’s year. Having already made a splash in the UK with quirky mockumentary This Country, Cooper’s new show Am I Being Unreasonable? (created with co-star Selin Hizli) takes her comedic experience and splices it with drama, mystery, and a hint of horror.
The end result is a weird mishmash of genres that come together to make a brilliant and disturbing show about family, friendship, and mental health.
What’s Am I Being Unreasonable? about?
Troubled, no-nonsense mum Nic (Cooper) is stuck in strained relationship with her husband Dan (Dustin Demri-Burns), worried about the odd behaviour of her son Ollie (Lenny Rush), and haunted by the tragic death of Alex (David Fynn), a man she was having an affair with. That’s a lot on its own, but then to make things even more complicated is the sudden arrival of new mum Jen (Hizli), with whom Nic immediately strikes up a connection — but is Jen who she initially appears to be?
As we said when we included Am I Being Unreasonable? in our roundup of the best British shows last year, it could easily have gone wrong in different hands. But Cooper and Hizli expertly weave these storylines together to form a messy portrait of parenthood that’s just the right mixture of recognisable and absurd, believable and psychologically twisted.
Like the main character’s mental state, the story is fractured at first, and nothing quite seems to fit. As we slowly learn more about the characters and their real motivations, the pieces come together.
Credit: Simon Ridgway/BBC Studios/Boffola Pictures
Am I Being Unreasonable? has a little bit of everything.
Like we mentioned above, Am I Being Unreasonable? is juggling a lot of plates. But it juggles them well, with the script weaving seamlessly between jokes and foreboding, heartfelt moments, as well as twists you don’t see coming. There are very few TV shows I’ve seen where I’ve laughed out loud and been hit with a genuinely unnerving jump scare in the same episode, but this is the kind of story Am I Being Unreasonable? tells. It’s difficult to say too much more without going into spoiler territory, and that’s something best avoided with this show. What begins as a seemingly straightforward family tale is packed full of the unexpected.
Complementing all of this is the acting; the whole cast is brilliant, from Lenny Rush’s precocious wit to the many masks worn by Hizli. Jonny Campbell’s direction lets the sharp dialogue work for itself while throwing occasional curveballs at us in the form of jarring flashbacks.
Watch the trailer to give yourself a taste, but stop there. Don’t read too much more about the show. The less you know about what’s coming, the better the surprises will be.
Am I Being Unreasonable? premieres on Hulu on April 11.
