From the Shelf: Modern love

One of the most noteworthy aspects of Amazon’s original series Modern Love is its episode length.  With each of the anthology series’ eight episodes clocking in at 30 minutes or slightly over, Modern Love accomplishes something rarely seen in television today, the power of brevity and poignancy. The shorter format ironically allows for more depth because the writers cannot beat around the bush they have to get straight to the point. In short, in a world where we are constantly seeking the grounded nature of the “Real” and the depth of an ocean the series is a breath of fresh air.

Without surrendering to the clichés of overindulgent emotionalism the series strives to challenge the seemingly ever present notion that length dictates quality, or that quality is dictated by the show’s ability to be emotionally draining. The show seemingly does so much with so little that it comes across almost effortlessly in its dialogue and awareness of human behavior. Perhaps that is why it is so striking. We are so often bombarded with stories that seek so hard to be “grounded” that they often forget what it means to be human.

Modern Love eloquently balances this understanding of humanity throughout eight distinct short stories; “When the Doorman is your man”, “When Cupid is a Prying Journalist”, “Take me as I Am, Whoever I Am”, “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive”, “At the Hospital, an Interlude of Clarity”, “So He Looked like a Dad. It was just Dinner, Right? “,“Hers was a World of One”and “The Race Grows Sweeter near Its Final lap”. These stories hardly if ever focus on our romantic preconceptions of love.  Instead, the series illustrates the powerful connections that form when we realize, sometimes stubbornly, that life is too hard to go it alone. “When the Doorman is your Man” brings this fact so delightfully to the forefront that it’s hard not to smile even when the episode presents some hard-hitting truths about single parenthood.

Life is not perfect, yet it is in that imperfection that we find connection, as they do in the episode entitled “At the Hospital, an Interlude of Clarity”. Modern Love embarks on a journey to try to discover what it means to love. This journey may bring to light some uncomfortable realities of life, as in an, as it does when it explores a young woman’s attempt to reconnect with her dead father. Though, in the end it is clear that Modern Love wants to express one of lives greatest treasures in its truest form. In so doing the anthology series strongly offers this truth. Realism is not the search for the depth of human sorrow. Realism is instead found in the search for human connection, and how that connection can aid us in this roller coaster of life.