Charismatic train wrecks have long captivated audiences, especially when the flawed characters happen to be women. Decades after such movies as “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” “A Woman Under the Influence” and “Diary of a Mad Housewife” dramatized messy lives on the big screen, streaming series this year have cornered the market on fictional females engaged in cringe behavior while they weather the slings and arrows of mundane fortune.
Here’s a look at four fascinatingly flawed characters portrayed by Emmy-nominated actresses in “Beef,” “Tiny Beautiful Things,” “Daisy Jones & the Six” and “Fleishman Is in Trouble.”
“Daisy Jones & the Six” (Prime Video)
Talent: Daisy Jones can sing, she can write songs and she can critique her fellow musicians with withering accuracy.
Issues: Narcissism, impulse control
Root cause: Cold mother. Daisy’s mother belittled her as a child, telling her that no one wants to hear her voice. Years later, Mom tells her now-successful rock star daughter that she’s “hard to love in real life.” Executive producer Lauren Levy Neustadter says, “I think the most relatable of Daisy’s insecurities is her tendency to experience self-doubt. Riley’s performance showcases a beautiful range of emotions around fears of inadequacy: She’s defensive, then vulnerable, then determined.”
Triggering event: Daisy sleeps with a musician who steals her lyrics for his hit single without so much as a thank-you — or royalty check.
Acting out: Daisy interrupts her bandmates mid-sentence, rewrites a song by the Six leader Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin) without his knowledge, strolls onstage ahead of her planned entrance after gulping whiskey and flies to Greece to marry an Irish playboy while the band’s first single hits No. 1 on the charts.
Rock bottom: Daisy nearly dies from a drug overdose
Dressed for dysfunction: Cowboy boots, blue jeans and hippie blouses inspired by the Laurel Canyon scene and Linda Ronstadt give way to Stevie Nicks-style scarves and capes. The breezy outfits camouflage Daisy’s angst-ridden interior life.
Telling line: “I’m not interested in being somebody’s muse … I’m not the muse. I’m the somebody.”
“Fleishman Is in Trouble” (FX on Hulu)
Talent: Smart and competitive, Rachel runs her own New York City talent agency.
Issues: Anger, anxiety, insomnia
Root cause: Rachel is abruptly touched by an obtuse ob-gyn at the hospital shortly before the birth of her first child. “It was the worst day of her life,” says narrator Libby (Lizzy Caplan). Rachel remains traumatized by the experience.
Acting out: Rachel drops off her two children at her ex-husband Toby’s (Jesse Eisenberg) apartment in the middle of the night. She goes to a yoga retreat with her rich new boyfriend Sam Rothberg (Josh Stamberg). Unable to sleep, Rachel gets a massage and screams very, very loudly.
Rock bottom: Rachel self-exiles in her dim apartment littered with half-eaten cartons of lo mein that she forgot she’d ordered. Executive producer Sarah Timberman says, “Anyone who’s ever felt really alone in the world or feared that even the most carefully constructed and fortified life might itself be a house of straw can see themself in Rachel.”
Dressed for dysfunction: Returning to Manhattan, Rachel continues to wear her business suit blazer, a remnant of her now-destroyed career, when she slumps, dazed, on a bench in Central Park.
Telling line: “I got dumped,” Rachel tells her friend Libby. “By who?” Libby asks. “Everyone,” Rachel answers.
For actors Riley Keough, Emily Blunt, Kathryn Hahn, Niecy Nash-Betts, Murray Bartlett and Paul Walter Hauser, learning new skills come with the job.
“Tiny Beautiful Things” (Hulu)
Talent: Clare resurrects her long-suppressed writing talents to pen the “Dear Sugar” advice column.
Issues: Depression, anger, self-loathing
Root cause: When Clare was 22 her mother died from cancer. At age 49, she still mourns the loss. Neustadter, an executive producer here as well, notes, “When we meet Clare in our series, she’s trying to muffle her pain, but it’s always with her.”
Rock bottom: After a night on the town, drunk Clare nearly has waterbed sex with her Uber driver. She’s not welcome at home by her husband (Quentin Plair) and daughter Rae (Tanzyn Crawford) because Clare spent the family’s $15,000 college fund to help her drug-addicted younger brother. She now sleeps in a chair at the nursing facility that employs her.
Telling line: “How did I get so far from the person I wanted to be?”
“Beef” (Netflix)
Talent: Savvy marketing skills and a keen curatorial eye for high-end plants.
Issues: Repressed anger, anxiety, depression
Root cause: Judgmental parents pressured Amy to internalize her feelings.
The circumstances: Stale marriage to stay-at-home husband George (Joseph Lee) exacerbated by relentless business pressures to sell her Kōyōhaus potted plant boutique so she can spend quality time with her adorable daughter, June.
Rock bottom: Amy rage-honks a stranger (Steven Yeun) in a parking lot, then cuts him off in traffic when he gives chase. Later, she masturbates with a gun and gets revenge on her new enemy by sleeping with his brother.
Dressed for dysfunction: Neutral but chic. Costume designer Helen Huang, working with series creator Lee Sung Jin, says, “I suggested we should put Amy in this white-creamy-khaki pared-back palette because she’s very controlled in what she presents to the world but not so controlled on the inside. It’s an interesting contradiction, because she has a lot of internal aggression.”
Telling line: “I hate pretending that I don’t hate things.”
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