Nathan Rabin

Trying is Apple TV+'s first dedicated comedy, apparently, and rather good for what it is. What it is is something about a north London couple trying to adopt, and a refreshingly non-Richard Curtis London couple, for what's sure to be a global viewership, or as much as Apple TV+ can depend on a global viewership, which is frankly not yet much.

It's funny, genuinely, with some very good lines. Rafe Spall as Jason excels as one half of the trying couple, lugubrious and staunchly anti-intellectual, yet half-wise. Where it falls down, and certainly not with the actor, Esther Smith (Nikki), is in the tweeness of characterisation. In 2005 film critic Nathan Rabin coined, not entirely unkindly, the phrase "manic pixie dream girl" for a certain type of heroine, and Nikki's certainly that - dungarees, breezy kookiness, squirrels and rainbows.

Unfortunately, this all spills over into the adoption process, with Nikki constantly trying to better herself (reading Dostoevsky, attending lectures with three highlighter pens) rather than Just Being Herself. Which will win in the long run. I'm sorry, it's rather good, but it irritated, with its cliched (bad) books versus (good) carefree-beach vibe, when there's no quandary. It's not a zero-sum game.

Euan Ferguson, The Guardian, 10th May 2020

It's a good time to revisit Four Lions

To cope with the tragic international events of the last few weeks, let's all revisit Chris Morris' masterwork of dark, weirdly healing comedy.

Nathan Rabin, GQ, 22nd November 2015

Man Up: A painfully convoluted romantic comedy

Who would want to see these actors be adorable and flirtatious with each other for 88 minutes or so when they could spend an equivalent amount of time watching them be overmatched human marionettes whose strings are being sadistically yanked in every direction by puppeteers interested in them only as vehicles to drive a phenomenally stupid plot forward?

Nathan Rabin, The Globe and Mail, 19th November 2015