Eastbound & Down
2009
Original language: English
- comedy
- drama
The story
Years after he turned his back on his hometown, a burned-out major league ballplayer returns to teach phys ed at his old middle school.
What it’s like
Warm, sun-bleached and sweaty: the look of a Carolina summer that never quite cools off, all saturated daylight, hazy heat, faded school colors and the dusty gold of small-town ballparks. The camera stays loose and close, often handheld in a sitcom-adjacent way, with plenty of awkward two-shots and sudden pulls back to reveal how little anyone is doing. Sound is mostly crickets, humming window units, announcer chatter and a throbbing, retro-leaning score that swells at the wrong moments on purpose. The vibe is crude, reckless and affectionately mean, a ripe comedy about self-sabotage that can turn melancholy in a single quiet beat. It suits a lazy weekend binge, a bad week you want to laugh through, or a night with friends who don't mind profanity. Language is constant and sexual humor and drinking are frequent, with occasional sharp violence and some cruelty played for laughs; it rarely lands as gentle. Episodes move at a brisk, escalating clip, with arcs of a washed-up, self-centred man grudgingly, unevenly learning to care about anyone but himself. Made for viewers who like their comedy foul-mouthed, unsentimental and built on a deeply unlikeable protagonist.
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