“Shrinkage” on Apple TV+: Teaching Malice with Harrison Ford – Media

Everyone should have fifteen minutes of quiet sadness. Paul Rhodes, self-tested, against depression and pain memories. “I put on one of my favorite sad songs and let myself be sad for fifteen minutes straight — and when the alarm goes off, I clear everything and get on with my life.”

Dr. Rhodes plays Harrison Ford, now in his 80s, making his big break in television in the series Shrinking, created by Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein, who also helmed the hit series Scrubs and Ted Lasso. Harrison Ford is actually prized for his spontaneous activist problem-solving, some of which he’ll be showing off again at the end of June when the next Indiana Jones movie hits theaters: “Indiana Jones and the Call of Destiny.” Paul, on the other hand, is a psychiatrist in Pasadena, California — Shrink means shrinkage, but in America it is also an accidental term for this complex profession. He participates in training with Jamie Laird, played by Jason Segel, and young African-American Gabby, played by Jessica Williams. Paul takes great care to adhere to the ethical standards of his profession and cannot accept Jimmy’s frequent transgressions – for example when he has a young patient staying with him. This is not a cure, only these chatPaul emphatically declares when he meets Jimmy’s daughter Alice on the park benches and talks to her about her troubles. Your mother, Jimmy’s wife, died a year ago. Paul is aging now, so he lets Gabby take him to the office in the morning, awakened by wild singing: “Every morning there’s a halo hanging from the corner of my girlfriend’s four-poster bed…”

There is no difference between normal and abnormal behaviour

“Shrinks” is outrageously funny developed, in the classic tradition of American comedy that shares with psychoanalysis the art of quick connection and learned subtle malice. Gabby likes to walk around carrying a water bottle because people need a lot of fluids, which Paul finds a bit exaggerated: “You know, Virginia Woolf also tried to drown herself…”

In Pasadena’s vibrant habitat, it’s not easy to distinguish between normal and unusual behavior. She annoys a female neighbor now and then because she acts as a surrogate mother for Alice, while her husband sometimes feels the need to urinate on the balcony. Jimmy does a sad act in his backyard at night, with loud music and two women in the pool. He wants his patients to work their own recovery, sometimes using radical methods: “We rob them of any opportunity to heal themselves…we become psychologically vigilant.” And he’s willing to get his hands a little dirtier than the profession allows. With Grace, played by high-spirited Heidi Gardner, he exploded: “Your husband is emotionally abusive. You must leave himLeave it, damn it, or I’ve been your psychiatrist for the longest time.”

The series is a little masterpiece of ingenuity and ingenuity. Bill Lawrence, who says he’s very good at taking no, was almost shocked when he offered Harrison Ford the script for the first episode — and described it: “Hey, the script is really good, but I’m in the first episode not much cast. Will I be on the next set a lot?” “

Downturn on Apple +.

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