Briefly, on The Bear
IĀ havenāt written in years, but Iām slowly, clunky trying to get back into it.Ā At the moment, it's very much a case of doing it for the sake of trying to remember how to do it... Hereās a short piece onĀ āThe Bearā (contains spoilers) that I managed to finish.
I'd heard a bit about The Bear- not too much so that it was labouring under the weight of expectation but just that it was a show about 'the pressures of the kitchenā and that it was good. But what convinced me to watch it was the runtime: eight 20-minute episodes, and, boy, does that brevity serve it well.
Broadly, The Bear is about Carmy (Jeremy Allen-White), who returns home to run his brother's beef sandwich shop after he dies and leaves it to him. Carmy, a rising-star chef of some repute, finds himself back in a place he had reasons to leave, struggling to make sense of the suicide of a big brother he loved fiercely but hadn't spoken to in years. Cooking was something through which Carmy and his brother connected, yet also the source of their estrangement: Michael never let Carmy work at The Beef; never explained why. And now it is all he las left of him - this poky, debt-addled shop with its askance, rag-tag staff.
Much of what makes The Bear work is due to Jeremy Allen-White's performance - all hand-pushed-through-it mussed hair, big eyes, shoulders tight with grief and guilt, puff-puff-puffing on a cigarette. Within that small kitchen, Carmy is both the storm and the stillness. A panic attack away from immolation. The camera seems relentless in its pursuit of him, exacerbating the tension and stress with rapid cuts, jittery tracking shots, and close-ups. When he flings open the back door for a moment's escape, you gulp the fresh air for release. In his brother's kitchen, Carmy grapples with the parallels of their shared passion and pain while seeking a way to free himself from being consumed by it. Wrestling the bear.
There are other superb turns, too. Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the only-made-tolerable-because-Michael-put-up-with-him, now superfluous Richie you loathe but could absolutely see yourself being two bad choices away from being. It's such an acute combination of writing and performance to give somebody who is so inherently cuntish a degree of understanding and vulnerability without it excusing him. Aya Edebiri as Sydney, a headstrong 'green' chef burning through workplaces due to an uncompromising belief in knowing the way (her way) in implementing change immediately wherever whenever that change makes sense. Success can only look like this.
And let's talk about it: that Jon Bernthal cameo. A cameo's function is to provide the audience with the pleasure of recognition upon seeing a well-known face in a perhaps unexpected context. When Carmy says 'I always thought my bother was my best friend... Except everybody thought he was their best friend... he was that magnetic.' Suddenly it all made perfect sense. Because cameos are also a form of shorthand- the shorthand of a specific actor bringing specific, familiar elements to a part. Who could be that instantly, believably magnetic? Now, you tilt-nodded your understanding. The gossamer of a character threaded throughout made sparkly flesh. It made sense that everyone fell apart after Michael died because Michael was Jon Bernthal and that's a charisma and warmth and presence whose loss you'd feel. That final shot of Carmy's memory of Michael throwing him a look and smile over his shoulder? Conspirational after what's just occurred but also filled with love- romantic not in nature but in style. A beautiful full stop.
