In ‘Barry,’ tragedy masquerades as comedy
Genre-bending show shines when it commits to its premise
In Barry, HBO’s newest comedy series, Bill Hader plays a hitman. What’s the twist? Shouldn’t it just be that Bill Hader, SNL alumnus and rising film & TV star, is playing an assassin?
Nah.
The twist is that Hader’s character is a hitman who wants to be an actor.
Okay, there’s more to it than that: After stumbling into an acting class while on an assignment to kill one of its students, Barry (Bill Hader), an ex-marine, finds himself fascinated with acting. He also finds himself fascinated with aspiring actress Sally (Sarah Goldberg). And as he gets more involved with the acting class and his erstwhile love interest, the violent collision between his hobby and profession becomes inevitable.
But still—it’s a show about an assassin who wants to act. It’s The Bourne Identity meets La La Land. When you put it that way, it really seems like the show shouldn’t work. At all.
The seemingly preposterous premise is just that—preposterous. And while Barry takes pains to explore its twin worlds of lighthearted crime parody and the–struggle–to–make–it–in–Hollywood genre, it also turns both genres on their head, and not just through their juxtaposition.
