The following review has minimal spoilers in regard to the Netflix show Russian Doll.
The moment I saw that a show would be featuring Natasha Lyonne, I knew I had to watch Russian Doll. Considering we’ve seen her face in shows like American Pie, Scary Movie, and Orange is the New Black, it’s great to see her get the recognition she deserves. There’s nothing you can’t love about her, so when I heard that she would be the co-creator as well as the lead actress, I couldn’t help but add the show to my netflix list.
A few weeks into its release on Netflix, the show already received a score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. So what is it about the show that is so compelling? Existentialists will get a kick out of this one; if you loved The Good Place, this is should be the next one on your hitlist. Russian Doll can seat itself next to Groundhog Day and Happy Death Day.
Films and shows like this are stress-inducing; their mentally absorbent quality sweeps you from your living-room-comfort and through inexplicable loops that deny what we know is true about reality. In other words, you die and resurrect at a previous checkpoint, a concept that facilitates video games, but is costly to your sanity. (Shows like this make me shudder at the flashbacks from Supernatural’s “Heat of the Moment” episode.)
Lyonne takes the role of Nadia, a boho New Yorker just trying to survive her 36th birthday, literally. What’s impressive is that Nadia is written as a powerful female lead, who lives independently. Not only that, but she lives in Manhattan working as a software engineer (awesome representation of women in technology, woo!)
The series begins with Nadia in the bathroom of her friend Maxine’s lively apartment party, later sullenly complaining about her missing cat quirkily named Oatmeal, and ending her night with getting run over by a taxicab. But wait, there’s more! As soon we realize she’s dead, Nadia reappears in the same dim-lit, modern bathroom that features a bizarre, artsy geode door. She seems to shrug it off and blame it on the cocaine-laced cigarette until she dies, over, and over, and over again. Everytime she dies, she can still recollect the moments before her death, which allows her to try and avoid it. Even then, avoidance can only take you so far, where being careful still ends with her being dead and returning to the beginning.
From being hit by the taxicab, falling down a staircase, and drowning in a river, she manages to die in every possible way in her New York neighborhood parameters.
Nadia reacts appropriately: first seemingly suspicious, followed by fits of paranoia, avoidance, anger, and finally acceptance (in which she lives through a cross-faded, light-hearted evening). At this point you begin to ponder if this were your situation. Once you’ve exhausted the possibilities, you become obsessed with finding answers, just like Nadia.
Russian Doll is much more than its cutting-edge cinematography or its catching typeface (which has gotten plenty attention from typography-enthusiasts). More often than not, you find yourself in Nadia’s shoes. As humorous as the show is, it’s scifi with plenty of heavy emotional baggage. Russian Doll is interested in carrying itself as a dramatic comedy, both moving as it is terrifying.
The show itself is a melting pot of genres. It could be described within the brackets of a dark rom-com, sci-fi, and thriller. You are often prompted by what it means to live and how much more you can appreciate living once it becomes interrupted. The show demonstrates the effects of trauma on a human soul and what it looks like under the layers further into the core.
Lyonne is part of the reason Russian Doll is worth watching. Her thick, crimson hair, wide eyes, and quick-wittedness are all just as charming as her looks of distaste and rude straight-forwardness. With her upright body posture, Nadia appears as though she always has somewhere to be and problems to solve (perhaps the best characteristic of a software engineer.)
Lyonne fits the suit of her character so well that it makes it hard to believe that every gesture and facial expression is all a part of her fictional character. So when you say you love Nadia, you basically love Natasha as well. Lyonne assists in making Russian Doll mentally immersive; we forget that this is only a fictional take on reality.
Russian Doll is praised for its unpredictability. The viewer is put in the same place as Nadia; there’s no telling how the show will move next. It sits next to Black Mirror in its level of intelligence and complexities, an outside-the-box level of thinking that is commended as an interruption to convention. Even when experiencing the repetition of the same evening after Nadia’s death, it strays from predictability.
The show moves with the right rhythm to keep it’s viewer in place, even when the plot shifts dramatically. The show is a worthwhile watch that need to move from the “your list” to “watch again” section on Netflix. Even after watching, you might end up hoping you don’t suddenly appear in front of a bathroom mirror.
Alma Tovar
Features Editor