The little gift of asking her to sing in the first episode is really the gift to enter back into life.” “It is a way for her to feel special and connected to people, and I think it taps into her grief and it helps her come alive in her family relationships. “Joel brings Sam back to music, which is the great love of her life,” Everett said.
Having been mesmerized by her as their high school’s star singer, Joel pulls Sam up on stage to sing during the service, a cathartic moment that closes out the pilot and opens up her world. In the first episode, Joel, a gay man striving to find his place in the small-town ideals of faith and family, invites Sam to join his off-the-books church service, where those who don’t fit the general religion or societal mold can commune through music. They spark each other in good and bad ways.”Įverett and Hiller saw their characters’ blossoming friendship as a give and take between two people who don’t yet know how much they can offer the other. But now Joel, this new person in her life, is opening her up again and we like what they do for each other. “Even on the grief side of this story, the last person Sam opened up to was her sister. “This show, at the heart of it, is about Sam and Joel and their tight friendship and the adventures they go on and the trouble they get in,” Bos said.
NEW YORKER BRIDGET EVERETT SERIES
When the series opens, Sam finds herself in a new friendship with her aspirational coworker Joel (Jeff Hiller), a former high school classmate who once idolized her and is now her gateway to living again. Even though they know the person we used to be or maybe still are, a hometown is that place where it’s just as safe to laugh as it is to cry. It might not sound like this comedic drama, co-produced by Jay and Mark Duplass, has much to laugh about, but that’s the other reality about hometowns. Around every corner, Sam is confronted with reminders of the sister she recently lost, the dream of a singing career she long ago abandoned, and the alcoholism her mother is choosing to ignore. One fact of life is that hometowns never go easy on us, whether you’re still there or just visiting. “She’s unmoored and has lost her connection to people.” So, too, has yours.“Sam is sort of drifting through life, she has let it all slip by and then suddenly wakes up and says, ‘where did life go?’” Everett said. By the end of episode 3 when, with the light of an electric crucifix glowing behind her like a sacrilegious halo, she belts the final notes of “Piece of My Heart” and rips her V-neck T-shirt to reveal her bra and cleavage, you can see a person whose spirit has been transformed. That often amounts to an impossible task for some, there’s no summoning the required energy to overcome the inertia. But once you’re there and invested, you won’t want to leave.Įverett’s Sam is a character who, like so many of us, has work to do on herself.
This is a series that takes its time to establish a sense of place, who these people are, and what they want from the world. Even if you were among those who stanned hard for her breakthrough performance as a domineering, absent mother in the Sundance cult favorite Patti Cake$, you’d be surprised by how much she’s capable of as an actress.
He drags Sam there, and as she finds her voice on stage, the empowerment and satisfaction echoes through the other complicated areas of her life.Įspecially in contrast to her cabaret persona, Everett is doing stirring, soft character work in this series. Instead, he uses it to stage an open mic night, his own cabaret of sorts, where the town’s queer folk, artists, and anyone who feels lost and yearns to express themselves can commune and perform. He tells a white lie to the reverend, asking for church space for choir practice. Through Joel, who volunteers for a church, she finds a bit of salvation. It’s a complement to her warmth and compassion, her desire for the best for everyone that she loves, even if they can’t be bothered to do right by her in return. And, maybe more terrifyingly, could she ever be happy.Įverett plays Sam, who is snarky and sarcastic in a way that puts off some members of her small-town Midwest family, but thrills others like her new friend Joel (Jeff Hiller), who works with her at the brain-numbing center where they grade standardized tests.
If you’re familiar with Everett’s cabaret work, you’ll be blown away by what you see in Somebody Somewhere, a profound and meditative-dare we even say quiet-series about a middle-aged woman who is back in her Kansas hometown following the death of her sister, wondering, maybe a few decades later than she should have, what the hell she is going to do with her life.
0 kommentar(er)
