Crime
The Stolen Girl
The Stolen Girl is a Hulu miniseries about a child kidnapping—and beyond that initial subject, there are some other content issues, too.
Matt Remick has his dream job. And he hates it.
As the newly promoted head of Continental Studios, Matt’s job is to make great movies.
Well, maybe makes isn’t quite the word for it. Writers, actors, directors, key grips … they have a bigger role in actually making movies. Matt’s just the guy who makes it possible for them to make movies. He greenlights projects, signs the checks, keeps the talent happy, all to keep his own boss, the overbearing Griffin Mill, off his back.
The word great might be a bit of a misnomer, too. Sure, he’d like to be involved in great movies. But in today’s cinematic environment, the quality of a given flick is beside the point. The point is to turn a profit. No profit, no job. Kapeesh?
“I was so much happier two weeks ago when I was just angry and resentful that I didn’t have this job,” he says shortly after his promotion. “I would give anything to be angry and resentful!”
Now, Matt doesn’t have time to be angry or resentful—not with worry filling up his calendar 24/7.
But everyone around him? Oh, they have plenty of time.
Let’s start with Patty Leigh, Continental’s former studio head. After she greenlit 10 straight bombs, her own head had to roll. She works for Matt now, and that’s not easy. But the movie business is in her blood; she just can’t walk away.
Sal Saperstein thought he might be in line to take Patty’s job before, y’know, she was actually canned. He and Matt had promised each other that no matter who was promoted, their friendship wouldn’t suffer. But c’mon, this is Hollywood we’re talking about, a city where everyone has a few knives sticking out their backs. How long can any friendship really last?
Matt’s longtime assistant, Quinn Hackett, got her own promotion when Matt was bumped upstairs. She’s a creative executive now. But why does it feel like her job hasn’t changed that much?
And let’s not forget Maya, the studio’s chief publicist and marketing guru. She doesn’t have an axe to grind (yet). No, she’s just plain angry.
The whole studio environment feels pretty cutthroat and crummy. But none of these people, especially Matt, would care to work anywhere else. From the time he was just a gopher on set, Matt has dreamed of sitting where he now sits—no matter how many disasters he causes, no matter how many hearts he breaks.
Why? Because he wants to make great movies. And sometimes—despite all the obstacles and backbiting—it happens. It happens in spite of everything.
“When it all comes together, and you make a good movie,” Patty tells him in a rare contemplative moment, “it’s good forever.”
TV shows? That’s another story.
The Studio is a scathing satire that pokes fun at Hollywood’s very favorite subject: itself. We’re given a backstage pass behind the glamour and glitz and see how the cinematic sausage gets made.
And man, it isn’t pretty.
Sure, on some level, it’s not meant to be. Seth Rogen’s Matt is the show’s likeable everyman, as starstruck in some ways as many of those watching. But he’s often The Studio’s primary antagonist, too—screwing up critical scenes on set, killing directors’ pet projects and feigning excitement about greenlighting a major motion picture about Kool-Aid.
But even as Matt bumbles his way through Hollywood, The Studio does its own series of painful pratfalls in front of discerning viewers.
Yes, The Studio’s glowing secular reviews have merit. This show is indeed funny and scathing and even offers moments of unexpected warmth. But it’s also as profane as any television comedy I’ve seen. Its premiere episode comes stuffed with more than 80 f-words, and its half-hour follow-ups don’t get much cleaner.
And naturally, being a satire, The Studio serves up plenty of gags based on Hollywood’s famed excesses: the drugs, the sex, the 48-hour parties. Even though the show is often making fun of all that excess, it still makes for an uncomfortable watch.
The Studio trots out many a cameo, with everyone from Martin Scorsese to Zac Efron playing versions of themselves on camera. It reminds me a lot of 1982’s The Player, another star-studded Hollywood satire directed by Robert Altman. But that forerunner comes with a hint of a warning, too. The Studio is indeed about Hollywood players. But as a prospective viewer, consider carefully—lest you get played.
Matt is given the reins to Continental Studios, a longtime Hollywood heavyweight that has, in recent years, lost its luster. The key, says studio owner Griffin Mills, is turning a profit. “At Continental, we don’t make films,” he tells Matt. “We make movies—movies that we pay money to see.” And Griffin is convinced that people will pay lots of money to see a movie about Kool-Aid.
Matt doesn’t want to make that movie. But when he hears a pitch from legendary director Martin Scorsese, his wheels begin to turn. See, Scorsese wants to make a movie about Jonestown—the infamous cult compound wherein 900 people committed suicide in 1978. And those 900 people died by ingesting poison mixed with … Kool-Aid.
We hear several crude references to sex (including same-sex encounters and sexual acts with multiple partners) involving critical bits of male and female anatomy. Matt longs to oversee a great movie that’s not made by a pervert. “Turns out, perverts make great movies,” his assistant reminds him. (“They really do,” Matt says.) The massacre in Jonestown is briefly discussed, and someone describes a work experience as akin to a “cat bringing in a mutilated pigeon.”
Someone is “shot” a couple of times in a movie scene, and we see fake blood issue from a stomach wound and from the victim’s mouth. Matt’s friend, Sal, snorts cocaine shortly after hearing of Matt’s promotion. A Jewish agent makes several remarks about Judaism as a way to ingratiate himself to Matt and Sal (both of whom are Jewish as well). We hear Griffin make some cringy, ingratiating remarks about race. There’s a reference to life “before the Flood.”
Characters say the f-word more than 80 times. We also hear about 15 uses of the s-word and a handful of other profanities, including “a–,” “h—” and “d–k.” God’s name is misused about a dozen times (once with “d–n”), and Jesus’ name is abused twice.
Matt and Sal drive over to the set of a Continental movie, where director Sarah Polley is getting set to direct a “oner,” a scene shot in one continuous take. (Appropriately enough, the entire episode is a oner itself.) But Matt’s well-meaning enthusiasm for the scene causes incredible levels of chaos and frustration.
Matt tells Sal that being a part of scenes like this are the reason why he does his job. “I do it for the money, sex, drugs,” Sal tells him. “But I’m built different, I guess.” There’s a reference to sexual arousal. Someone trips and bashes his nose, which bleeds profusely. A character noisily urinates.
The movie in question is said to be a “lesbian love story,” and we see the female star kiss another woman. She also smokes a prop marijuana joint. (We hear that in the beginning of the film, she insisted that she had stopped smoking.) We hear a reference to a time on set when a studio “suit” brought in “a magnum of Dom [Perignon] and an eight ball [an eighth of an ounce of cocaine].” Matt tells Patty that she was “much nicer when you were an alcoholic.”
We see an actress in a bikini. We hear the f-word about 35 times, the s-word another 10 times. Other profanity includes “a–,” “b–ch,” “crap” and “d–n.” God’s name is misused about a dozen times (once with “d–n”), and Jesus’ name is abused five times.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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