If you’re a “Gilmore Girls” fan, the name Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband’s, Daniel Palladino, ring more than just a bell. They are names you know as a beacon for witty screenwriting and innovative storytelling.
With the Palladinos’ inclusions of fast-paced dialogue, literary, theater, film and musical references, their style is a love letter to the art culture obsessed.
Whether or not you’re a fan, the couple’s recent work, Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” starring Rachel Brosnahan (“Beautiful Creatures,” “House of Cards”) and Alex Borstein (“Family Guy,” “Getting On”), won two Golden Globes for the categories, Best Television Series-Musical or Comedy, and Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series-Musical or Comedy.
The series centers on a young Jewish woman, Miriam “Midge” Maisel, played by Brosnahan, as she discovers who she is outside of her marriage and the life she was groomed to live due to her husband, Joel, played by Michael Zegen, leaving her after admitting he is having an affair and bored with their Upper Manhattan life.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Thrust into the world to provide for her children and deal with being separated, Midge finds that she has a talent for stand-up and with the help of her manager Susie, played by Borstein, shines like she never has before.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is a perfect combination of feminism, gender roles and religious conventions in a time that makes it taboo to be bold. On what would seem on the outside like a cliché story, it’s everything but.
It’s a portrait of Midge and her journey as a tornado of a woman in a man’s world that asks women to be perfect.
Midge is sharp, intelligent, strong, hilarious, independent and the embodiment of everything a woman shouldn’t be by the time’s standards, thus still relatable for women today who say “hell no” to gender convention.
Supporting characters, such as Midge’s father, played by the timeless Tony Shalhoub (“Wings,” “Monk”) are refreshing in both storyline and comedic moments.
Palladino, as she did with “Gilmore Girls,” knows how to write a parent-child relationship in a way that makes it relatable for anyone watching.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
She truly brings the best of her writing to hysterically express the complexities of her characters, while the costume, makeup and set designers add to the experience of watching every episode that has such flair.
The choice of musical score is mesmerizing and just as unforgettable as the series, with music from classic artists such as Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Peggy Lee, Blossom Dearie and even some sway into the rebel, David Bowie.
The music flows with the story as it progresses, almost as if narrating its characters’ lives as they go from points A to B.
Without wanting to spoil more for you, all I can say is this: Watch it.
It’s not just a story for then, but a story of now and the female experience.
Only when Midge is left with “failure” for a conventional life does she realize she can be anything, and that in itself is a metaphor to live by.
As Midge would say, “Why do women have to pretend to be something that they’re not?”
