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Nathan Fielder\u2019s career to this point has been defined by an obsession with the way people act when they are being filmed. In his Comedy Central series, \u201cNathan for You,\u201d he came up with outlandish ideas to promote small businesses, often capturing the surreality of human behavior as he instituted his plans. He followed that up with \u201cThe Rehearsal,\u201d an HBO show in which he tested the idea that one could \u201crehearse\u201d for real life scenarios \u2014 confrontations with friends or even parenthood \u2014 and filmed the results.<\/p>\n
In his latest series, Showtime\u2019s \u201cThe Curse,\u201d created with the \u201cUncut Gems\u201d filmmaker Benny Safdie, Fielder has stopped playing himself but has kept the same fascination. At the center of the first episode are two incidents that involve his character, Asher Siegel, caught in unflattering and uncomfortable situations on camera.<\/p>\n
Asher and his wife, Whitney (Emma Stone), are the self-appointed stars of \u201cFliplanthropy,\u201d a home renovation pilot they hope to sell to HGTV in which they tout their \u201cInvisible Homes,\u201d mirrored structures that are supposedly eco-friendly. They know they are supposed to be the perfect couple \u2014 smiling, in love, generous \u2014 and while Whitney plays the part well, Asher can\u2019t help but let his mask slip. He\u2019s desperate to be seen as a good guy but that desperation only exposes his pettiness.<\/p>\n
Television\u2019s tendency to create its own reality is a core theme of \u201cThe Curse,\u201d announced by the opening scene in which the couple\u2019s producer, Dougie (Safdie), pours bottled water on the face of a cancer patient to make it look like she\u2019s crying over the news that the couple has found her son a job. Whitney is outraged \u2014 even if that outrage is performative, she has a reputation to maintain \u2014 but Asher is more comfortable with Dougie\u2019s machinations. He wants to trust his childhood friend, even though from early on it seems clear that Dougie deserves no one\u2019s trust.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n