‘Alice and Steve’ review: Jemaine Clement and Nicola Walker light up Hulu’s wildly funny, unexpectedly poignant comedy

Alice (Nicola Walker) will react badly when she learns that Steve (Jemaine Clement), her ex-boyfriend turned best friend of 30 years, is dating her 26-year-old daughter (Yali Topol Margalith). For one thing, it’s hard to imagine who won’t Be curious of such a situation. Alice, on the other hand, is a reckless, impulsive, and selfish person who is unlikely to take any action in her stride, let alone such explosive news as this one.

So, even as she throws herself into petty revenge, going further and more extreme in her struggle against Steve, it’s hard to say that any of it feels unexpected — perhaps amusing, sure, and terrifying, but not unexpected. What’s so surprising about Hulu? Alice and SteveHowever, the intensity of emotion lies behind it. It’s perfectly encapsulated by Walker’s performance, and lingers long after Alice’s anger explodes.

The delightful, comforting chemistry between Alice and Steve is evident in the opening minutes of the premiere, written by creator Sophie Goodhart and directed by Tom Kingsley. When they’re together, even a mutual friend’s funeral becomes a reason for exchanging biting jokes, wasting tequila shots and then tearing it up in the club with an old stash of cocaine. “If there is a flood, I will remove my mother’s body and use her as a boat to get you to safety,” she announced in a quirky but usually affectionate exchange. She’s joking, but she also means it. Even more than her husband, Daniel (a likable Joel Fry), it is Steve who may be her true (platonic) soulmate.

But what neither of the lifelong friends expects when Alice lets Steve crash on the sofa that same evening is the sudden attraction that develops between him and Izzie (Margalith), who has temporarily returned home after the breakup. Although the connection is new, and both Izzie and Steve agree it’s a terrible idea, it’s strong enough that they consider it worth incurring Alice’s inevitable wrath by telling her.

And they endure it they do. Over the course of six half-hour episodes, Alice becomes obsessed with ending the relationship first, and when she can’t, she destroys Steph — to the point of neglecting her job responsibilities as well as her home life with the interminably ill Daniel and their sweet teenage son Dom (Tyrese Eaton-Dice). Steve, after a period of cowardice, offers the best he can, taking aim at Alice’s career, marriage, and reputation.

It’s a cycle of escalation that’s so pointless and petty, it could have fueled an entire season meatAs with the Netflix series, much of the fun comes from seeing how self-destructive both parties are — with plenty of laughs along the way, thanks to the cringe-worthy humor of hellish dinner parties or lighthearted cracks from bystanders like Alice’s mother Val (Marcia Warren), whose reaction to the pairing is to jokingly suggest and comment on “how wonderfully French” Steve should date his ex-girlfriend’s daughter.

The fact that all this craziness is the result of a relationship that is actually the weakest link in the story is a bit confusing and perhaps the point. on the one hand, Alice and Steve He’s less interested in the indescribable magic that brings people together than in the emotional baggage that threatens to tear them apart, and it’s clear that Izzy and Steve’s coupling has as much to do with his loneliness and inability to be alone as it does with their shared affections for Vongole noodles, Willie Nelson, and sexual situations that we only hear about in vague terms.

On the other hand, even if we don’t buy into romanticism, we have to believe they Do that, however misguided – and neither the writing nor the chemistry is deep enough to sell this as the kind of overwhelming attraction that might inspire these two to destroy their relationships with Alice. While Clement, as co-lead, gets enough screen time to embody Steve’s brand of melancholy, Margalith’s Izzy never ceases to feel like a walking, talking plot device, only to be blown away any time the story needs an extra boost.

However, if the inciting incident seems overly contrived, the emotions it evokes feel real enough to make up for it – and never more so than in Walker’s gritty, ferocious performance. As Alice is torn apart through the series by the chaotic force of a hurricane, Walker lays out her turbulent emotions with such precision that we understand the hurt disguised as hatred, the indignation that turns to remorse, and the fear of loss that fuels her campaign of terror, before we understand Alice herself.

In that, she is not as alone as you might assume. Similar tensions lie at the heart of not only Steve and Izzie’s ill-advised relationship, but also Alice’s faltering marriage to Danielle, Danielle’s burgeoning relationship with a sexually liberated co-worker (Marnie Lydia Wilson), and Dom’s flirtation with his school crush, Roma (Eilidh Fisher) — the latter left open because labels are reserved for old people, while young people understand that “life is fluid and defining something only limits it.”

Or so the children claim. In a moment of weakness, Roma confesses the truth to Alice: “I don’t want to need anyone.” It’s easier to escape the chaos of emotions than to face the possibility that they might crush you. Alice, who understands this feeling better than Rome can, responds with all the maternal wisdom she can muster. “Some people find love hard. Some people are just assholes,” she says. Alice and SteveThe most poignant revelation, buried somewhere amidst all the retaliatory shenanigans and escalating consequences, is that most of us know exactly what it means to be both.