“It Gets Worse” Review: Sharp A24 British Comedy Produced by Leo Reich

Accused at a dismal sex party of using humor as a defense mechanism, Ethan (creator Leo Reich) turns the tables on the pretentious asshole who dares to judge him. “What’s wrong with you all?” » he mocks. “You can’t laugh at yourself. And it’s so sad, because you’re missing out on a really funny joke.”

Ethan, on the other hand, could never be accused of missing the joke. He is the first to laugh at a little sadness or to delight his friends by recounting his sexual misadventures. His show, Paramount+’s It’s getting worse and worseisn’t shy about having some fun at his expense, either: the very first scene opens with narrator Zadie Smith dryly observing, “Ethan has had one of the easiest lives in recorded human history.” »

But if the Brit-com (produced by A24 with Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and Crave in Canada) rarely misses a punchline, what makes its humor is its equal measure of heart. In its blend of wry self-awareness and sincere empathy, it captures the dizzying agony of young adulthood, when all this life stretching before you can feel a blessing and a curse simultaneously.

Regardless, Ethan isn’t the only one suffering even if he doesn’t have any real problems. On the show, he’s joined by his friends and co-protagonists Abi (Emily Fairn) and Sam (Olive Grey) – all twenty-something Londoners free of serious responsibilities like marriage, children or demanding careers, and even less troubled by real disasters like World War II or the AIDS crisis. In the broader television landscape, they’re part of a long line of comedies about young people partying, hooking up, or hooking up in the big city, alongside friends from Friendsthe girls of Girls and adults of Adults.

Like the best of these shows, It’s getting worse and worse relies on the lively personalities of its protagonists and the warm chemistry between them. Ethan is the most aimless of the trio, a self-deprecating but egocentric slacker raised by well-off parents whose greatest sin is rightly perceiving him as lazy and entitled – “which is a really pernicious trope about white gay men!” he insists, half-heartedly calling out homophobia. Sam is a Substacker who built her reputation on essays about the “Blaireite construct” that is Kim Kardashian, and who makes money tutoring rich kids in English. Abi is the more stable person, with a stable if thankless office job in human resources and a stable if passionless relationship that seems on the right path to marriage.

The three are different enough that you suspect life will eventually take them in disparate directions. For now, however, they are united enough that neither can imagine life without the others – not least because until the start of the series, they were roommates and best friends. It’s the end of their lease that sends them on their own separate but intertwined adventures, and gives them It’s getting worse and worse the opportunity to dispatch all sorts of annoying types a young person is likely to encounter in 2026.

Ethan crashes with his last terrible relationship, a perpetually shirtless aspiring actor (Adrian Nik) whose latest self-tape, in a rather The other two-ish touch, is for a live-action remake of Ratatouille. Sam finds refuge with his unethical, non-monogamous ex (India Mullen) and a draining community of artists and intellectuals who frame their demands for a roommate’s share of Mubi subscription fees in grandiose speeches about promoting a “liberationist environment.” Abi moves in with her boyfriend (Sean Delaney’s Tom), a humorless foodie viciously but accurately mocked by his friends as “Jeremy Allen Beige,” and attempts to climb the ranks at a startup run by a nightmarish boss played by Lena Dunham.

But Reich reserves his sharpest readings for the trio itself. Some are delivered in this sharp narration: “Unlike Ethan, Abi knew what she wanted” is the start of the Abi-centric episode, which is exactly how you know to expect a scenario in which Abi has no idea what she wants. Others are passed from one character to another. Sam laughs that Abi doesn’t like Tom, she just likes “your Dyson and your natural wine and the feeling of having won” can be very harsh, Tai, but it’s not wrong.

And then there are the scathing life lessons embedded in the plots themselves. Sometimes their tantrums are hilarious, like with a certain explosive argument punctuated by a perfectly disgusting sound effect (you’ll know it when you hear it). Some play in a more subdued, bittersweet way, like when Sam is forced to deal with uncomfortable feelings at the funeral of a classmate she didn’t know very well or like very much.

A few are also repetitive, even in the modest space of six half-hour episodes. Are Sam and Ethan’s tendencies to fall in love with those who don’t love them back really so different that they deserve two separate storylines? But anyone who’s 24 could tell you that some lessons take a few disastrous turns to follow.

What keeps It’s getting worse and worse from feeling too harsh on his characters is the clear affection he has for them, demonstrated by the attention he pays not only to what they do, say or feel, but to what they do not say to each other; what they are trying not to realize about their feelings of guilt or regret; what they pretend not to feel about the assholes and assholes they’ve given their hearts to against their better judgment. This leaves space for their feelings, no matter how petty, trivial, or mundane, as the characters struggle to create that space themselves.

And even though it documents the ups and downs of their lives, It’s getting worse and worse captures the strange nostalgia of being just old enough to realize you’ll never be that young again. “Ethan wasn’t stupid. He never imagined things would be easy. But he imagined more interesting difficulties,” observes the narrator as Ethan looks sullenly at a hole in the wall that he is forced to repair. What she knows, and what Ethan also seems to intuit on some level, is that the title of this series might well turn out to be a prophecy—that even such terrible and mundane tasks might turn, one day, into a treasured memory of the best days of your youth.