Watching Bill Hader's post-"Saturday Night Live" career feels a little like witnessing a star circus seal released back into the ocean. Marvelous as he was as part of that sketch ensemble, he's been even more versatile as a solo act, transforming his rubbery goofiness into a palpable fragility that serves him well in more dramatic pieces.
This brings us to "Barry," Hader's eight-episode series premiering Sunday at 10:30 p.m. on HBO. Created by Hader and "Silicon Valley" executive producer Alex Berg, this black comedy is a "both sides now" type of proposition for the actor, a work that's comedic in all the right places with tense personal terror, melancholy and muddy tragedy binding it all together. "Barry" also feels awkward in its first few episodes, which may be intentional — as if to mirror the tortured evolution of Hader's titular character, a hitman who is incredibly effective at what he does but, like so many people, hates his job.
The brilliance of "Barry" lies in the story's sneaky reliance on Henry Winkler's charismatic drama teacher Gene Cousineau, and the oddball affability of Anthony Carrigan's Chechen mobster. But they are only two of several leavening agents drawing the comedic attention away from Hader, a necessary tactic to allow Hader's Barry to strengthen a connection with the audience. It's important to know this: Barry kills people, efficiently and without compunction.
Barry drags a gloom around with him. He behaves like a hollow man in part to sublimate lingering trauma stemming from his combat experiences in the Marine Corps, and in part the only way to do his job well is to feel nothing. As such he's invisible, slipping into his jobs, completing his mission and retreating into his colorless, shabby hovel that passes for a life. Thus Barry has no connection, no personal passions, nothing he loves, and therefore, not much of a reason for being.
His handler Fuches (Stephen Root) doesn't care, but in any case, he casually hands Barry off to the Los Angeles arm of the Chechen mob in Los Angeles to off a playboy actor who's having an affair with the head mobster's wife. What neither Fuches nor the mobsters account for are the one-two punch of Barry's instant desire to win the affection of aspiring actress Sally (Sarah Goldberg), whom he meets when he follows his mark into an acting class, and the commanding magnetism of Cousineau, who styles himself as a modern version of method instructor Konstantin Stanislavski.
Goldberg's Sally is as mercurial and fetching a character as she needs to be to make it worthwhile for Barry to endanger himself by staying with the group, and to expose his soul, a feat largely accomplished by Cousineau's manipulative verbal lashings. The trick here is that we've seen versions of this dynamic before, and that would seem to be a strike against "Barry" in its first episodes. But the story and atmosphere morph quickly into a work that balances sweetness, quirk and sinister anxiety.
It takes work to make a viewer feel for an unfeeling figure, but Hader achieves this from the opening moments of "Barry," and of course part of this is due to our familiarity with the actor himself. Even so, the forlorn demeanor he evokes here pulls in the viewer with an unusual force. Because he leans so heavily on his dramatic side, Root's forced cheerfulness creates a contrast that highlights the absurdity of the various debacles the pair tumbles into. He's a delight even when he willfully throws Barry to the wolves, which happens frequently.
Winkler, though, is another source of elation entirely. Somehow he makes his character's self-involved windbaggery the main reason to watch; his ego gorges on the worship of the starving would-be artists taking his class, and Winkler conveys this by infusing every declaration with the energy of absolute importance, from the feedback he lends to performances to menu suggestions.
Where "Barry" falls short, but only slightly, is with the characterizations of its mobsters. If you've seen any film or TV series featuring organized crime thugs, you'll know what to expect here, at least at first. Carrigan eventually transforms his role from the standard omnipresent second-in-command to a personality quilt of odd graces that blossom, weirdly, in the back half of the season.
Truly, however, "Barry" is just the right kind of bizarre from beginning to end, stepping up its shocks and gut-punches steadily and quietly as the series rolls along. And it's fascinating to see Hader in a way that takes his chameleonic strengths and turns them on their ear, inviting us to cheer on an empty soul learning how to act like a feeling person, despite all the risk that comes as part of that package.
Shares