Platonic

Available on Apple TV+

Apple has demonstrated a niche for glossy, inoffensive comedy since foraging into the world of television, evidenced no better than the roaring success of Ted Lasso. With that show now having finished, there’s something of a football-sized hole in the company’s small-screen schedule.

Shrinking, co-created by Ted Lasso alumni, was a promising first attempt to move past Jason Sudeikis’ twee stylings. Platonic, which reunites Bad Neighbours co-stars Rose Bryne and Seth Rogen, is not. The show, created by real-life couple Francesca Delbanco and Nicholas Stoller (who directed the aforementioned Bad Neighbours franchise), is focused on a problematic friendship between Bryne’s disillusioned stay-at-home-mom and Rogen’s hopeless-but-hip manchild.

One can only assume that the intention of Delbanco and Stoller was to deliver a modern retelling of When Harry Met Sally, one that explores the age-old question of whether a man and woman can truly ever just be friends. However, the key difference between that romcom classic and Platonic is that the latter’s central characters are so intensely unlikeable that it’s nigh on impossible to invest, let alone resonate, with their respective arcs.

Indeed, Platonic has a lazy air about it that makes you feel as if the show’s creators thought that Bryne and Rogen’s admittedly undeniable star power would be enough for viewers to ignore just how clumsy and occasionally problematic the show’s storytelling is. For some, it might well be, but I found this to be a painfully posey, unfunny affair.