As ordinary as it sounds, this show strikes me as an extraordinary accomplishment, and one quite unlike anything I have watched on television before. That cannot be true, can it? The desire for and pursuit of love is the most common story in the history of storytelling, is it not? And yet, here is something fresh. At a time when uninspiring reboots are all the rage, how wonderful it is to see stories about a timeless topic told in ways that make it exciting and new. I am reminded of my reaction to the first season of ABC’s Modern Family, which made me feel as though I had never watched a sitcom about a family.
I have never read the celebrated New York Times column (featuring true-life love stories written by real-life New Yorkers) from which series creator and executive producer John Carney drew his inspiration for this show, so I came to it completely unaware of what I was in for, save for previews and a session at the Summer Television Critics Association tour that seemed to emphasize the performance of Anne Hathaway (pictured at top with Gary Carr) in an episode about a single bi-polar woman struggling to overcome the outsize challenges she faces everyday and connect with someone – anyone – in a meaningful way. The emphasis was not without merit. Hathaway gives a performance that is simultaneously heartbreaking, chilling, thrilling and uplifting. She deserves every award that every relevant organization has to offer, if only because she somehow stands out above a large cast of equally gifted actors doing equally fine work, among them Cristin Milotti, Dev Patel (below left), Catherine Keener (below right), John Gallagher Jr. and Jane Alexander.