For years I remember hearing about the brilliant Mike White, and all I had really seen from him was School of Rock, which I enjoyed but didn’t consider earth-shattering by any means. I was aware of Orange County and The Good Girl but still have yet to see them since I hadn’t heard anything that screamed I needed to. I’ve only recently learned of Chuck & Buck for which a lot of his acclaim stemmed. And on and on.
So really I wasn’t expecting huge things from Enlightened when I heard he was the creator and sole writer. Now though, it almost feels like he’s something of a kindred spirit: very observational, introspective, hypersensitive, all qualities he writes into the show, in different forms. It seems like a medium he’s well suited for. He has the time to slowly and deliberately tease out all the details of this odd and unique character, carefully crafting scenarios where we’re able to learn more about her and her motivations, priorities, and values.
We are fed information through her own voice, her own idealistic thoughts on things, and then we’re presented information more objectively visually, often revealing some severe contradictions and highlighting her delusions. The master stroke he makes though is really making Amy a sympathetic person. She’s hard to take but there’s no doubt that she really genuinely wants to do good things; she just has a skewed perspective on what that is, and how to achieve them.
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