Russian Doll

We're used to it by now. We do not have time to finish a series, to define it as excellent and to get excited about it, that already another tick around the corner leaving us in panic and waiting to enjoy it all.
And those series that we will like will continue to follow them, some will end, other new ones will come out increasing the stack of TV series to watch, to cultivate, to "consume".

Without entering the serial macromondo we just need to take a look at the amazing offer of Netflix. In this 2019, in just 50 days we witnessed that little phenomenon of "Sex Education", the second season of Punisher, as we speak has just been released what promises to be one of the most impressive series of the year "The Umbrella Academy".

In between there has been a product that is already on everyone's lips and that many have defined as the best news of this early 2019.

We are talking about "Russian Doll" series written, directed and performed by Natasha Lyonne, to many known for the marginal but iconic role in the American Pie saga, to others famous for the role of one of the inmates of another famous netflixian product like Orange is The New Black.

This time Lyonne, together with Amy Poehler, takes on the role of screenwriter and gives birth to a cathartic series that makes irony, genre mixing and the fluid and claustrophobic narrative style her dominant feature.

The series is in 8 episodes and tells us about a successful but completely dysfunctional woman, we could say messed up to use a term often used during the 8 episodes.

It's the day of her thirty-sixth birthday and although Nadia is an independent woman with a career in the video game industry well underway there's something missing in her life, something she doesn't denounce the loss but that empties her day after day.

As often happens, the symptoms are recognizable to the outside eye but the person directly concerned struggles to understand them trying to fill, more or less unconsciously, their existential emptiness with escapades, drugs and a life in its own way lived to the fullest.

Something strange is about to happen though, something inexplicable.

Nadia dies.

But Nadia doesn't die at the same time.

She resurrects, we might say.

She still does.

She still rises.

From the very first minutes we are catapulted into a loop where we witness the death and resurrection, the continuous death and resurrection of the protagonist.

The spectator feels a sense of estrangement second only to the sense of estrangement that the protagonist feels.

She comes back to life always starting again from the same spatial point and the same temporal instant.

She finds herself in the bathroom, reflected in the mirror, with the door closed beyond which the party for her birthday celebration is taking shape.

Nadia will try not to die. She will try not to commit the same actions to try to save herself. It will all be in vain. She'll keep dying.

Something will soon change, both in the phases leading up to the resurrection and Nadia's perception of that event.

It will also take an unexpected encounter to awaken her and make her aware of the impact of that situation on her life and vice versa.

Russian Doll has received enthusiastic criticism. We are probably not dealing with a masterpiece, nor with something particularly original, but there is no doubt that the series has been able to enrich itself thanks to careful writing and sparkling dialogues that have made every moment enjoyable, mixing dark and light tones, sarcasm and irony with philosophical reflections on the human condition.

We have to die a thousand times to learn how to live.

We could synthesize in this way, maybe even trivialize the humus rooted in the series.

The fact is that the 8 episodes flow quickly, they never appear redundant despite a narrative structure that involves the continuous repetition of scenes, settings and situations.

Luckily for us, each scene, although structurally often identical, is different in its nuances, accompanying us in a journey within ourselves reflected in the soul of a protagonist so apparently safe and superficial but that reveals itself, like each of us, vulnerable and full of hidden human potential.

A series that follows the great Christmas movies full of good feelings, but mixing with them some very dark colors that give us a hybrid with the flakes not to be missed.

Natasha Lyonne is the absolute protagonist of the series, succeeding with her pen to give new nuances to the concept of feminism abstracting herself from the classic equal opportunities and giving us refined lessons on what self-determination really means.

She is very good and absolutely perfect for the part. Knowing that behind every movement or dialogue there is her mind then, gives the whole a sense of extraordinariness and completeness.