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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Netflix’s 'Russian Doll' delivers strong comedic, emotional punch

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A promotional picture for 'Russian Doll' (2019–) is shown.

Netflix’s new series, "Russian Doll" (2019–) contains a premise that has been featured in film and television numerous times: The protagonist, Nadia (Natasha Lyonne), keeps dying and reliving the same day. With this premise, however, the show takes the viewer to a place only possible in our current content-and-streaming-soaked television landscape. The show blends comedy, drama and sci-fi together to create highly bingeable content that feels meaningful, innovative and very funny.

The first episode introduces us to Nadia, a hardened, self-destructive and willfully self-reliant New Yorker who appears to be fairly unamused at her own birthday party. After leaving her party with a moderately unlikable stranger, Nadia is struck dead by a taxi, but is immediately brought back to the bathroom at her party earlier in the night. Nadia relives the night and dies repeatedly as she grows increasingly alarmed and doubtful of her own sanity.

Natasha Lyonne’s performance as Nadia is hilarious and intimate. She has called the series “in some ways deeply autobiographical,” and as the show's co-creator, co-writer and lead actress, she has clearly imbued the project with her own experiences both as a New Yorker and as someone who is in recovery from addiction. Nadia is an aloof individual, unwilling or unable to form deep attachments to others. The only relationships she shows any sign of serious personal investment in are those with her cat, Oatmeal, and with Ruth, a psychiatrist who raised her from a young age. It quickly becomes clear to the viewer that beneath her strong exterior, Nadia is, as Ruth eventually says, “chasing down death at every corner” and avoiding anything that might bring lasting emotional fulfillment. Eventually, however, Nadia meets Alan, a man with emotional baggage to rival her own, and is forced into what she eventually tells him is her worst nightmare: dependence on another human being.

The premise of "Russian Doll" can be viewed metaphorically as the hellish loop that life becomes while one is experiencing addiction, depression or even loneliness. Only by relying on one another and peeling away our layers, like nestled Russian dolls, can one escape whatever kind of loop one might be living. And while this lesson is not exactly groundbreaking, the manner and quality of its delivery allow for it to feel touching, deeply personal and original.

Despite the show’s philosophical and psychological waxings, it also succeeds comedically. Lyonne shows off her physical comedy chops in a number of scenes throughout the show and delivers witty, biting lines that, in her cigarette-soaked and thickly accented voice, harken back to an earlier kind of New York City comedy. Nadia’s bohemian friends also bring humor to the show, playing off of tropes in a way that doesn’t feel lazy or reductive. With this humor in hand, the show is able to deliver a deeper message that feels disarming and natural, blending the genres of comedy and drama together seamlessly.

Lyonne once said in an interview about the show, "I really believe in the underlying goodness in the admission of brokenness." The show throws that maxim into sharp relief. It asserts that despite any wishes to the contrary, we are irrevocably dependent on one another for happiness and survival. These admissions of brokenness and interdependence are not admissions of weakness, but rather admissions of strength. By acknowledging truths that are fundamental and self-evident, our lead characters are able to move courageously towards growth and, hopefully, some form of happiness.

Summary "Russian Doll" is a charming show that slowly peels away the various layers of its own characters to reach a moving conclusion.
5 Stars