Comment on the comedy-drama starring Ant-Man Paul Rudd
Poster of Netflix's comedy-drama "Living with Yourself" starring Paul Rudd
“Living with Yourself” was released in 2019 on Netflix, and starring Ant-ManPaul Rudd. On first glance, it’s a typical sci-fi story. The leading character Miles was a middle-age man struggling with his life. Under the advice of his colleague, he decided to visit a mysterious spa to “be happy” again. But soon he realized, he had been cloned. A happier version Miles was standing right in front of him, optimistic towards everything, and may take over his life, his work, and his wife.
I’m guessing Asian faces and purple tone are common Hollywood techniques to make the scene more “mysterious”. Scene from the top-secret spa in “Living with Yourself”
It’s 2021, we’ve seen so many clone topic films. Then what makes “Living with Yourself” refreshing? For starters, the narratives kept changing to multiple perspectives during the 8 episodes. Second, the director/ writer Timothy Greenber gave audience a tricky question, does the new one must outweigh the old? Finally, Paul Rudd really took out all he got from 27 years of acting up to full strengths. Let me explain more.
PLEASE NOTE BELOW COMMENTS CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS.
The New One Always Win?
This is usually the case when it comes to shopping for new clothes, new electrics, and sometimes in the case of a relationship. The fun thing about “Living with Yourself” is that we see things not only from two Miles’ angles, but also from his/ their wife Kate (starring Ireland actress Aisling Bea, who has a lot Rachel Weisz vibe).
Then it became clear that there was no bad guy. Original Miles, although cynical and uncaring sometimes, was after all a simple guy who just wanted to be happy again. Even though he was provoked to act (ex. finally visited the fertility clinic) after feeling threatened by cloned self. Miles eventually realized what he missed for a long time and found the way to win it back.
New (cloned) Miles is apparently more positive, more creative, and more grateful to everything in life. Hence he seemed to gain more affection immediately by all. However, new Miles was so eager to win over Kate that he even considered killing his original self. In the end, he realized that even with all the memories and better behavior, he couldn’t recreate years of couple chemistry. So he was willing to let it go.
Kate, the wife who was reluctantly dragged into this dilemma, was so convinced that new Miles should be gone when the cloning first came to light. But as original Miles kept disappeared her, Kate “cheated” with new Miles. The twist kicked in, she realized that she couldn’t ask Miles to stay as the man she married, cuz she changed too. The new one isn’t always better. Sometimes all we need is the original one that accompanied us all these times.
Meet Paul Rudd When He’s Not Ant-Man
“Living with Yourself” is Paul Rudd’s first starring TV role. I have to confess, I never knew he can act so well! I first saw Paul Rudd from an old 1995 YA film, “Clueless”, an adaptation from Jane Austen’s famous novel Emma. Later he was known as Phoebe’s boyfriend Mike from “Friends”. He then took a couple supporting roles. From 2015, he became famous again, as Marvel’s Ant-Man.
For a time I saw Paul Rudd as a nice, baby-face guy who seems to be happy to play supporting roles as such. But in “Living with Yourself”, he successfully played every role so well: the younger caring-husband Miles, the old bitter Miles, the growing new Miles, the new Miles pretending to be original Miles. It’s the same actor, nevertheless those roles were all showing completely different characters! That’s brilliant acting.
Who can say no to double Paul Rudd? Scene from Miles and Kate’s home in “Living with Yourself”
The Remaining Questions
Cloning is always a controversial issue. Due to regulation, so far there’s no public human cloning cases. I think it’s good that this topic is filmed. By watching the drama we would feel more relate to, and gets us thinking the moral issues hidden in the comedy. In this sense, “Living with Yourself” is a bit like a philosophy debate in another TV show “The Good Place”. You can find my comment on the show here.
A hypothetical note, in the show the price for making a clone and having fertility treatments was both $50k. Is that the standard prize for making a baby via technical procedure?
Another interesting argument, can we be a happier version of ourselves if we didn’t physically experience all the things happened? Can we be free from the grudge and dissatisfaction via magical technical invention one day? And what’s more important, if answers to both questions are yes, do we wanna?
Finally, I would like to share a quirky fun song in the show that left quite some impression. It was composed by talented British electronica musician Anna Meredith. A bit Hans Zimmer style, but funky in its own way. If you like her music, can check another longer footage covered by NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concerthere.
Background Information of “Living with Yourself”:• Number of season: 1 (season 2 is still undecided as of Apr 2021)• Running time per episode: 21–35 minutes• Type of the show: Comedy, Drama, Sci-fi• Distributor: Netflix• Released in: Oct 2019• Created by: Timothy Greenber• Leading actors/actresses: Paul Rudd and Aisling Bea
Disclaimer: copyrights of all the pictures in this article belong to Netflix.
If you like my article, feel free to simply give me a clap below or follow my account. If you are a fellow “Living with Yourself” or drama fan, don’t be shy to leave your comments too! And more stories and comments on TV show can be found here. What’s more, you can always give me some “Likes” if you are a Liker on Liker Land.
Liker Land is a place where you can register for free to be a “Liker” and support content creators. Without the intervention of mass corporate ads, this blockchain application is a great invention to support individual creators. A bit like what I like to do when traveling: buying small souvenirs to support local artists. If you’re already on board, welcome to show your support via the link below.
