“Civil War,” Alex Garland’s divisive new action flick, borrows iconography—and actual footage—from the America of today as set dressing for a hypothetical, fractured future. Though we know that the President is in his third term, and that Texas and California have formed an unlikely alliance against him, very little is said about the politics that brought us to this point. Garland’s true interest lies not with the cause of the carnage but with the journalists compelled to document it. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz debate whether the film glamorizes violence, or whether it’s an indictment of the way audiences have become inured to it through repeated exposure. The hosts consider Susan Sontag’s “On Photography,” which assesses the impact of the craft, and “War Is Beautiful,” a compendium that explores how photojournalists have historically aestheticized and glorified unthinkable acts. From the video of George Floyd’s killing to photos of Alan Kurdi, the young Syrian refugee found lying dead on a Turkish beach, images of atrocities have galvanized movements and commanded international attention. But what does it mean to bear witness in the age of social media, with daily, appalling updates from conflict zones at our fingertips? “I think all of us are struggling with what to make of this complete overabundance,” Schwartz says. “On the other hand, we’re certainly aware of horror. It’s impossible to ignore.”
Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Civil War” (2024)
“Ex Machina” (2014)
“Natural Born Killers” (1994)
“The Doom Generation” (1995)
“War Is Beautiful,” by David Shields
“On Photography,” by Susan Sontag
“Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold” (2017)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Since the turn of the millennium, HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” has slyly satirized the ins and outs of social interaction. The series—which follows a fictionalized version of its creator and star, Larry David, as he gets into petty disputes with anyone and everyone who crosses his path—aired its last episode on Sunday, marking the end of a twelve-season run. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the show’s “weirdly moving” conclusion as well as its over-all legacy. Then they consider other notable TV endings: some divisive (“Sex and the City”), some critically acclaimed (“Succession”), some infamously rage-inspiring (“Game of Thrones”). What are the moral and narrative stakes of a finale, and why do we subject these episodes—which represent only a tiny fraction of the work as a whole—to such crushing analytic pressure? “This idea of an ending ruining the show is alien to me,” Cunningham says. “I won’t contest that endings are different—distinct. Are they better? I don’t know.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (2000-24)

“Seinfeld” (1989-98)

“Sex and the City” (1998-2004)

“Succession” (2018-23)

“The Hills” (2006-10)

“Game of Thrones” (2011-19)

“Breaking Bad” (2008-13) 

“Little Women,” by Louisa May Alcott

In her 1955 novel, “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” Patricia Highsmith introduced readers to the figure of Tom Ripley, an antihero who covets the good life, and achieves it—by stealing it from someone else. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the long tail of Highsmith’s work, which has been revived in adaptations like René Clément’s 1960 classic, “Purple Noon”; the definitive 1999 film starring Matt Damon and Jude Law; and a new Netflix series, “Ripley,” which casts its protagonist as a lonely middle-aged con man. In all three versions, Dickie Greenleaf, a wealthy acquaintance of Ripley’s, becomes his obsession and eventually his victim. The story resonates today in part because we’re all in the habit of observing—and coveting—the life styles of the rich and famous. Social media gives users endless opportunities to study how others live, such as the places they go, the meals they consume, and the objects they possess. “One of the reasons that the character of Ripley is forever sympathetic is the yearning and striving to be something other than himself, following an example that’s set out to him,” Fry says. “For him, it’s someone like Dickie. For us, it might be someone online.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:
“The Talented Mr. Ripley,” by Patricia Highsmith
“The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999)
“Purple Noon” (1960)
“Ripley” (2024)
“Saltburn” (2023)
“The White Lotus” (2021—)
New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

News of Kate Middleton’s cancer diagnosis arrived after months of speculation regarding the royal’s whereabouts. Had the Princess of Wales, who had not been seen in public since Christmas Day, absconded to a faraway hideout? Was trouble at home—an affair, perhaps—keeping her out of the public eye? What truths hid behind the obviously doctored family photograph? #WhereisKateMiddleton trended as the online world offered up a set of elaborate hypotheses increasingly untethered from reality. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how a particular brand of “fan fiction” has enveloped the Royal Family, and how, like the #FreeBritney movement, the episode illustrates how conspiracy thinking has become a regular facet of online life. The hosts discuss “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” an essay by the historian Richard Hofstadter, from 1964, that traces conspiratorial thought across history, as well as Naomi Klein’s 2023 book “Doppelganger.” How, then, should we navigate a world in which it’s more and more difficult to separate fact from fiction? Some antidotes may lie in the fictions themselves. “The rest of us who are not as conspiratorial in bent could spend more time looking at those conspiracies,” Cunningham says. “To understand what a troubling number of our fellows believe is a kind of tonic action.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:
“Don’t Blame ‘Stupid People on the Internet’ for Palace’s Princess Kate Lies,” by Will Bunch (the Philadelphia Inquirer)
“Doppelganger,” by Naomi Klein
“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” by Richard Hofstadter (Harper’s Magazine)
“The Parallax View” (1974)
“Cutter’s Way” (1981)
“Reddit’s I.P.O. Is a Content Moderation Success Story,” by Kevin Roose (the New York Times)
New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Science fiction has historically been considered a niche genre, one in which far-flung scenarios play out on distant planets. Today, though, such plots are at the center of our media landscape. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz anatomize the appeal of recent entries, from Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” movies to Netflix’s new adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem,” the best-selling novel by Liu Cixin. The hosts are joined by Josh Rothman, an editor and writer at The New Yorker, who makes the case for science fiction as an extension of the realist novel, tracing the way films like “The Matrix” and “Contagion” have shed new light on modern life. The boundaries between science fiction and reality are increasingly blurred: tech founders like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have cited classic sci-fi texts as inspiration, and terms like “red-pilling” have found their way into our political vernacular. “I find the future that we’re all moving into to be quite scary and sort of unthinkable,” Rothman says. “Science fiction is the literary genre that addresses this problem. It helps make the future into something you can imagine.”

 
Read, watch, and listen with the critics:
“Dune: Part Two” (2024)
“3 Body Problem” (2024)
“The Martian Chronicles,” by Ray Bradbury
“Dune” (2021)
“Dune,” by Frank Herbert
“Star Trek” (1966-1969)
“2001: A Space Odyssey,” by Arthur C. Clarke
“Dune” (1984)
“Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality?” by Joshua Rothman (The New Yorker)
“The Matrix” (1999)
“Contagion” (2011)
“The Future,” by Naomi Alderman
“Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich,” by Evan Osnos (The New Yorker)
“The Three-Body Problem,” by Liu Cixin
“Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds,” by Jiayang Fan (The New Yorker)
New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

For centuries, the bildungsroman, or novel of education, has offered a window into a formative period of life—and, by extension, into the historical moment in which it’s set. Vinson Cunningham sent the draft of “Great Expectations,” a book loosely based on his experience on Barack Obama’s first Presidential campaign, to publishers on January 6, 2021. Shortly after he hit Send, he watched rioters break into the Capitol building. “For me, it was, like, cycle complete,” he says. The age of optimism ushered in by Obama was over. “We are off to another thing.” Cunningham’s novel is part of a tradition that stretches back to the eighteen-hundreds: coming-of-age plots that chart their protagonists’ entry into adulthood. On this episode of Critics at Large, Cunningham and his fellow staff writers, Naomi Fry and Alexandra Schwartz, discuss how “Great Expectations” fits in the genre as a whole. They consider it alongside classic texts, like Gustave Flaubert’s 1869 novel “Sentimental Education,” and other, more recent entries, such as Carrie Sun’s 2024 memoir, “Private Equity,” and reflect on what such stories have to say about power, disillusionment, and our shifting relationships to institutions. “I think, if the bildungsroman has any new valence today, it is that the antagonist is not parents, it’s not religion, it’s not upbringing—these personal facets that you usually have to escape to come of age,” Cunningham says. “It’s the superstructure. It’s finance with a capital ‘F.’ It’s government with a capital ‘G.’ ” 

The office has long been a fixture in pop culture—but, in 2024, amid the rise of remote work and the resurgence of organized labor, the way we relate to our jobs is in flux. The stories we tell about them are changing, too. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss Adelle Waldman’s new novel “Help Wanted,” which delves into the lives of retail workers at a big-box store in upstate New York. They’re joined by The New Yorker’s Katy Waldman, who lays out the trajectory of the office novel, from tales of postwar alienation to Gen X meditations on selling out and millennial accounts of the gig economy. Then, the hosts consider how this shift is showing up across other mediums. Though some white-collar employees can now comfortably work from home, the office remains an object of fascination. “The workplace is within us,” says Fry. “There will always be shit-talking about co-workers, about bosses—the materials for narrative will always be there.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Working Girl” (1988)

“Office Space” (1999)

“The West Wing” (1999-2006)

“Help Wanted,” by Adelle Waldman

“The Pale King,” by David Foster Wallace

“Personal Days,” by Ed Park

“Then We Came to the End,” by Joshua Ferris

“The New Me,” by Halle Butler

“The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,” by Adelle Waldman

“The Jungle,” by Upton Sinclair

“Severance,” by Ling Ma

“Temporary,” by Hilary Leichter

“Severance” (2022—)

“The Vanity Fair Diaries” (2017)

“Doubt: A Parable,” by John Patrick Shanley

Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5”

“Mad Men” (2007-15)

“Industry” (2020—)

“Norma Rae” (1979)

“30 Rock” (2006-13)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

The campaign for an Oscar is just that: a campaign. In the weeks and months leading up to the ninety-sixth Academy Awards, actors and directors have been hard at work reminding voters and the public alike of their worthiness, P.R. agencies have churned out “for your consideration” ads, and studios have poured millions of dollars into efforts to help their films emerge victorious on Hollywood’s biggest night. In this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the state of the race, from the front-runners to the snubs and the season’s unlikely “villain.” The hosts are joined by The New Yorker’s Michael Schulman, the author of “Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears,” who describes how Harvey Weinstein permanently changed the landscape in the nineties by treating campaigns as “guerrilla warfare.” Today, much of the process happens behind closed doors. If the game is rigged, why do we care about the outcome? “Even though we know that there is a mechanism behind these things, a glow does attach itself to people who win,” Cunningham says. “We are still very much suckers for the glamour of merit.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears,” by Michael Schulman

“Oppenheimer” (2023)

“Barbie” (2023)

“May December” (2023)

“Poor Things” (2023)

“The Zone of Interest” (2023)

“Nyad” (2023)

“Maestro” (2023)

“Shakespeare in Love” (1998)

“Saving Private Ryan” (1998)

“Can You Really Want an Oscar Too Much?” by Michael Schulman (The New Yorker)

“Anatomy of a Fall” (2023)

“Titanic” (1997)

“Ferrari” (2023)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

At this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, Usher Raymond sang through decades of hits while twirling on roller skates, making a case for himself as one of the great R. & B. artists of our time. The performance illuminates a key aspect of modern pop stardom: the fashioning of one’s legacy in real time. In this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how musicians’ images take shape independent of their music. They consider “Bob Marley: One Love,” a new bio-pic made with the support of the Marley estate that deliberately smooths the rough edges of the singer’s life. Today’s performers take a more active role in their own reputation management, using high-profile appearances to stake a claim or reinforce their persona. At this year’s Grammy Awards, the question of legacy came to the fore when Jay-Z took issue with the fact that his wife, Beyoncé, has never won the coveted Album of the Year award. But the most indelible moments from the ceremony involved songs from decades prior—a reminder that the music itself is often more enduring than any formal accolade. “Rather than legacy in corporate terms or in institutional terms,” says Fry, there’s also “the legacy of the heart.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Bob Marley: One Love” (2024)

“Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell, as performed at the 2024 Grammys 

“If I Ain't Got You” by Alicia Keys

Luke Combs’s cover of “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman

Twins react to “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins

“Walk the Line” (2005)

“You Make Me Wanna . . .” by Usher

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

As much as contemporary audiences relish a happily ever after, some of the greatest romances of all time are ones that have turned out badly. In this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider stories of “wretched love”—love that’s star-crossed, unfulfilled, or somehow doomed by the taboos of the day. First, they react to listeners’ favorite examples, from Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” to “The Notebook” to the Joni Mitchell song “The Last Time I Saw Richard.” Then, the hosts discuss their own picks: the poet Frank Bidart’s collection “Desire”; James Baldwin’s novel “Giovanni’s Room”; and “A Girl’s Story,” by the Nobel Prize-winner Annie Ernaux. Why do we—and centuries’ worth of artists—gravitate toward tales of thwarted desire? Perhaps it’s because these moments unlock something that stays with us long after the sting of heartbreak has faded. “When you widen the lens, life goes on,” Schwartz says. Nevertheless, “there is a need for all of us to return to that moment because that was part of what made you who you were.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Annie Ernaux Turns Memory Into Art,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)

“Anna Karenina,” by Leo Tolstoy

“Conversations with Friends,” by Sally Rooney

“Desire,” by Frank Bidart

“Eugene Onegin” (1879)

“Giovanni’s Room,” by James Baldwin

“A Girl’s Story,” by Annie Ernaux

“Sense and Sensibility,” by Jane Austen

“Sense and Sensibility” (1995)

“Sylvia,” by Leonard Michaels

Joni Mitchell’s “The Last Time I Saw Richard”

“The Notebook” (2004)

“Wuthering Heights,” by Emily Brontë

“Wuthering Heights” (1939)

Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

If some of us have managed to avoid mean girls in life, we’ve had no such luck in art. The “mean girl”—a picture of idealized femininity who usually heads up a like-minded clique—has appeared in films like “Clueless,” “Heathers,” and, of course, the 2004 classic “Mean Girls,” written by Tina Fey. Recently, the mean girl has received a makeover. In this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss texts that have breathed new life into the trope, beginning with Ryan Murphy’s “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” which dramatizes the schism between the writer Truman Capote and the group of New York City socialites he called his “swans.” The hosts trace the figure of the mean girl through culture, from the character of Regina George—who returns in the 2024 movie-musical reboot of “Mean Girls,” albeit a little less mean than before—to the cast of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.” Today, the archetype is ripe for projection, appropriation, and maybe even for sympathy. “The hope and the fear looking at these mean girls is imagining how great their lives must be,” Fry says. “But I think concurrently we would be happy to learn that, in fact, it’s lonely at the top.” 

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The Allure of the Mean Friend,” on “This American Life”
“Carrie” (1976)
“Daniel Deronda,” by George Eliot
“Euphoria” (2019—)
“Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” (2024)
“Gossip Girl” (2007-2012)
“Heathers” (1988)
“La Côte Basque, 1965,” by Truman Capote (Esquire)
“Mean Girls” (2004)
“Mean Girls” (2024)
“101 Dalmatians” (1961)
“The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” (2020—)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.