Throughout his career, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has excelled at playing a variety of roles, from the endearing hero sort (in movies such as 10 Things I Hate About You) to more complicated personas (such as in Inception).
His latest role, a 30-something elementary school teacher Mr. Corman in the Apple TV+ show of the same name, is definitely of the latter variety. In fact, the entire show has an off-beat dramedy feel to it, and it’s the type of series that has flourished in the age of streaming and prestige cable productions, joining several other recent TV offerings that have a similarly intriguing mix of the comic and the dramatic.
The White Lotus
The HBO series The White Lotus has garnered significant critical attention, in large part because it’s like almost nothing else currently on TV.
Focusing on the staff of a Hawaiian resort and the strange needs of a group of guests, it has an off-beat, and sometimes absurdist, sense of humor that makes it an ideal match for those who enjoyed Mr. Corman’s similar strange approach to comedy. And, like the Apple TV+ series, there are very few characters in the series that are likable, but they are nevertheless very compelling.
Physical
With Physical, another Apple TV+ original, Rose Byrne gets a role that will surely be seen as of her best. Given that the series brands itself as a dark comedy, it may not be for everyone, but it has a similar vibe to Mr. Corman.
Furthermore, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Rose Byrne’s Sheila is someone struggling to really understand herself and her place in the world. And, similarly to Mr. Corman, she may not always be particularly likable, but Byrne’s charisma is such that she commands attention and viewer investment.
Mr. Robot
The key ingredient to the success of series like Mr. Corman and Mr. Robot is a magnetic performance from the lead, and they both have that in spades.
In the case of Mr. Robot, that performance is delivered by Rami Malek, whose brooding intensity and perpetual existential angst allows his character to almost leap off of the screen. The show itself at times becomes narratively muddled, but it always recognizes that its key strength is in Malek and with his obvious screen chemistry with the equally compelling Christian Slater.
The Morning Show
Like many other prestige dramas, Apple TV+’s The Morning Show is all about complicated people with sometimes murky moral compasses. Its lead characters, Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy and Reese Witherspoon’s Bradley Jackson, are two women caught up in the cutthroat world of morning television and in their own identity crises.
For fans of Mr. Corman, the series offers the same sort of deep character study and psychological complexity that characterizes Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s series.
Dr. Death
Part of the appeal of Mr. Corman, both the character and the show, is how intense the show feels, despite the fact that nothing very high-stakes happens. Peacock’s Dr. Death delivers a similar sort of depth but with the added drama of having its story center around a surgeon, played by Joshua Jackson, whose surgical ineptitude is such that it leads him to be tried in a criminal court.
Like Mr. Corman, the entire series is viscerally unsettling, particularly in the scenes in which Jackson’s Dr. Duntsch is in the operating room.
Rutherford Falls
Mr. Corman’s title character is a man rapidly approaching middle age who has to contend with the fact that his life hasn’t turned out as he expected it to. A similar crisis afflicts Ed Helms’ Nathan Rutherford in Peacock’s comedy series, Rutherford Falls.
After having spent his entire life devoted to his hometown and its history, Nathan increasingly finds everything that he thought he believed called into question. And, like Mr. Corman, Nathan doesn’t always respond in the most responsible or kindest way, even if he remains one of Rutherford Falls' best characters.
Hacks
Like many other HBO shows, Hacks focuses on an antihero, in this case, Deborah Vance (played by Jean Smart in on of her best roles), an aging comedian whose career has begun to flag. Most of the series focuses on her antagonistic relationship with the young writer brought in to help her punch up her comedy routines.
As with Mr. Corman, the humor in Hacks tends to be acidic. Jean Smart’s Vance knows how to deliver a cutting remark with almost surgical precision and, like Mr. Corman, she sometimes sabotages the most meaningful relationships in her life.
Broad City
In some ways, Mr. Corman, like many other series of the moment, is about an older millennial attempting to figure his life out in a world in which that is increasingly hard to do. That same theme, of trying to figure life out and “make it,” is the central theme of Broad City.
Throughout its run, its main characters, Abbi Abrams and Ilana Wexler, struggled like Mr. Corman to come to terms with the fact that growing up and becoming an adult means having to sacrifice some independence.
You’re The Worst
The romantic comedy movie is one of those genres that seems to have largely vanished from movie screens. Fortunately, there’s You’re the Worst, the series from FX that satirizes the genre while also partaking in its tropes.
Like Mr. Corman, it has a somewhat bitter sense of humor, and its two leads are not always the most appealing or sympathetic of people. And, like the Apple TV+ series, it’s also about the ways that people try to make sense of their lives and the people that surround them.
A.P. Bio
Mr. Corman is one of those shows that definitely leans into the negative. Its humor is largely of a bleak nature, especially since its main character tends to find himself in very uncomfortable, and sometimes disturbing, situations that lead to a nervous sort of laughter.
A.P. Bio, starring Glen Howerton of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is similarly skewed in its sense of humor, and its leading character is even more unpleasant than Mr. Corman himself.