'How to Make
It in America,' empty faces
The characters in this new HBO series are ciphers
By Tom Conroy
Feb 12, 2010
It’s been said that for a TV show to succeed, viewers have to be able to identify with the characters. That may or may not be true, but viewers do have to be able to identify them.
The main characters in HBO’s comedy series “How to Make It in America,” premiering this Sunday at 10 p.m., are so ill defined that it’s nearly impossible to get involved in their stories. Despite the good acting, flashes of clever dialogue and HBO’s usual high-quality production, the premiere episode will likely leave viewers either shrugging their shoulders or saying, “Who are these people?”
What’s worse, after four episodes, the characters’ blanks remain un-filled-in.
Ben Epstein (Bryan Greenberg) is a college dropout in his late 20s who is trying to make it as a designer but seems too depressed to do much of anything. Although one reason for his bad mood seems to be his recent breakup with his girlfriend Rachel (Lake Bell), he doesn’t seem to have ever had a real job and is currently working as a sales clerk at Barney’s.
We’re supposed to believe that this nice suburban boy’s best friend is Cam Calderon (Victor Rasuk), a streetwise Dominican American who deals in stolen goods and is inexplicably irresistible to women.
In the first four episodes, the depressive Ben and the manic Cam try to launch a line of high-end blue jeans using some black-market denim they bought. (Maybe the show should be titled “Slacks and the City”?) Their efforts are lame enough to be sad but not quite lame enough to be funny.
Oddly, these two losers have successful friends. David “Kappo” Kaplan (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a nerdy high school acquaintance of Ben’s who is now a hedge-fund millionaire. He provides some comic relief, but even his character is off. One might believe that he would hire a Russian hooker, but would he take her to Barney’s to help him buy trousers?
Another friend, Domingo (Scott Mescudi), seems to be wealthy, but it’s never quite made clear how he earns his money. The character’s bio on the HBO web site says he’s a “well-connected player.” Oh, OK.
The female characters are also underwritten. Rachel gets a subplot all to herself in one episode, but all that happens is that she questions her job as an interior designer after having lunch with a college friend who is doing humanitarian work. The guys also have a friend named Gingy Wu (Shannyn Sossamon), whose sole function seems to be to say sympathetic things to Ben, just in case the audience is getting tired of his moping.
Oddly for a show that is being talked up as a Manhattan version of “Entourage” — many of the creators and producers have worked on that show — the series gives ample screen time to the middle-aged ex-con Rene (Luis Guzmán), Cam’s uncle. Is the young-male audience going to be riveted by his struggle to market a Jamaican energy drink in the bodegas of New York?
Like “Entourage,” “How to Make It in America” tries to get the details about its milieu right. But Hollywood is a lot more interesting than the New York garment business. The cameo by the designer John Varvatos might make pulses race on Seventh Avenue, but the average viewer isn’t likely to care.
The show does handle one subject well: If you don’t count Cam’s success with women, the scenes of twentysomething dating and nightlife ring true and provide some laughs.
But those scenes cry out for something that HBO viewers have expected ever since the channel started producing its own scripted programming back in the ’80s: gratuitous female nudity. In fact, many moments in which nudity wouldn’t even be gratuitous pass without a single flash of skin.
The show’s creators not only seem to have no idea who their characters are; they also seem to have no idea who their audience is.
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