Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one of those actors loved on the indie movie scene and now he brings us Mr Corman, the TV show he has created and stars in.
The Josh Corman of the title is a depressed LA teacher with a broken heart who way back in the day was very nearly a rock star. The very nearly hangs heavily on Corman and as a result, he’s in a perpetual state disappointment. It should be rich territory for a comedian and whilst Gordon-Levitt is very good at ennui and broken dreams, the laughs aren’t flowing as freely as they should.
The irony of Mr Corman of course, is that its star Gordon-Levitt has success that others would kill for: 3rd Rock from the Sun, acclaimed romcoms 10 Things I Hate About You and 500 Days of Summer and even his own feature with Don Jon. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, has made it and has the world at his feet, and we can only assume this series is his love letter to his alternate self who missed the sliding door on his first big break.
Thus Mr Corman it’s entertaining and somewhat curious, without ever setting the room alight.
The Telegraph’s Benji Wilson thinks “Mr Corman has moments of sublime beauty, but also passages where you could as well be watching the microwave.” Kevin E G Perry in the Independent feels that given some of the weighty subject matter “it’s perhaps unsurprising that the show is light on belly laughs, but Gordon-Levitt’s engaging presence and sharply observed scripts make Mr Corman the sort of teacher you really want to spend your extracurricular hours with.” In Variety Caroline Framke is less convinced and says that despite “surreal breaks in reality, Mr Corman has trouble finding much of anything new to say about the overwhelming ennui of a thirtysomething year-old man feeling stuck in his own boring life.”
