The better film comparison is something more contemporary than Harold Ramis’ landmark comic romp. Adventureland, Greg Mottola’s lovely comedy about youth’s twilight in Reagan-age Pennsylvania, deftly explored early-20s angst and desire, a balance that Red Oaks handles with a firm grip through the first season. As an assistant tennis pro from a working class family, David is neither snob nor slob. The kid’s not a loser, but doesn’t feel like following in the footsteps of his CPA father (the always welcome Richard Kind), somewhat to the chagrin of David’s more mature girlfriend, Karen (Gage Golightly).
Life on the court quickly leads to David getting entangled with the club’s imperious president (Paul Reiser) and his beguiling daughter (Alexandra Socha), but Red Oaks isn’t just about one wayward putz figuring out what to do with his life. That’s a good thing, as these journeys of youthful self-discovery sometimes can’t justify two hours of screentime, let alone five. Roberts, leaving his Welsh accent at the coat check, is the lynchpin performer, as Red Oaks would be insufferable without an actor that can so reliably leaven David’s dry matzo listlessness with charm and sympathy.
The show tells multiple character stories over the course of the first season, all of them of an established type. David’s schlubby best friend Wheeler (Oliver Cooper) courts an out-of-his-league lifeguard (Alexandra Turshen), Mrs. Meyers (Jennifer Grey, bringing ‘80s icon cred to a winning performance) struggles to hold her household together, and head tennis pro Nash (the terrific Ennis Esmer, battling Kind every episode for comic supremacy) tries to elbow his way into high society. No envelope edges are pushed, and it took until the fourth episode for the show to score its first real belly laugh (David’s father, having been caught behind the saloon doors of a VHS store’s porn section: “This isn’t the western section!”).
That’s maybe why series creators Joe Gangemi and Gregory Jacobs (a frequent collaborator with Red Oaks EP Steven Soderbergh) should be thankful that –unlike other recent streaming shows that risk losing viewers over the weeks it takes to fully develop- all of Red Oaks is available upfront. Even with its murderers row of different directors (including David Gordon Green, Amy Heckerling, Nisha Ganatra, and Hal Hartley), Red Oaks maintains a consistent grasp of its characters, setting, and tone that makes watching the show go through motions with confidence much more entertaining than it otherwise might be.
Without the finale to judge by, it’s hard to tell what the creators have in mind for the future of the series, if any. Much as Red Oaks could satisfy as a 5-hour movie, the second half of the season demonstrates a lot more storytelling flexibility than the first allows for. The Heckerling-directed, Gangemi/Jacobs-written seventh episode is easily the funniest, presaging the rash of late ‘80s body swap comedies (including Vice Versa, which featured Kind) with one of its own. That a show with such a refined form can suddenly go magical realist without breaking a sweat suggests Amazon could eventually have a real winner on its hands, should it renew the membership of Red Oaks.
