Lengthy Story Quick creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg is an knowledgeable at pairing a stomach snigger with a intestine punch. Look no additional than his work on the critically acclaimed comedy BoJack Horseman, which mixed ridiculous gags with poignant examinations of melancholy, habit, and trauma.
Now, Bob-Waksberg serves up the same cocktail of hilarity and heady matters in Lengthy Story Quick. The sequence, which Netflix has already renewed for Season 2, facilities on a Jewish household in Northern California. The Schwooper siblings — a hybrid of their dad and mom’ final names, Schwartz and Cooper — burst onto the display screen as a completely fledged, immediately lovable crew. However it’s Lengthy Story Quick‘s nonlinear construction that actually takes it over the sting, crafting a young have a look at all of the methods our households may also help or hinder us over the span of our lives.
Lengthy Story Quick‘s Schwooper siblings are an prompt basic TV household.
The Schwoopers get fairly an introduction in “Long Story Short.”
Credit score: Netflix
Assembly the Schwoopers is like being wrapped in a hug that goes on only a tad too lengthy: It is heat and fuzzy, however loads all on the similar time.
That is as a result of Bob-Waksberg throws us into the Schwoopers’ dynamic headfirst, hitting us with a barrage of fast-paced dialogue, inside jokes, and a fancy internet of interpersonal relationships that really feel lived-in from the leap. After only a few moments with the Schwoopers, you may assume you have recognized them for years. (By the tip of Season 1, you will have recognized them for years, because the sequence spans a long time.)
The eldest of the Schwooper siblings is Avi (voiced by Ben Feldman), the nerdiest of the crew and the kid who ultimately turns into essentially the most distant from the household’s Jewish religion. Center little one Shira (voiced by Abbi Jacobson) navigates the chaos of being the one Schwooper daughter, all whereas hoping her detrimental experiences along with her family do not affect the household she plans to begin along with her accomplice Kendra (voiced by Nicole Byer). Youngest Schwooper Yoshi (voiced by Max Greenfield) is the black sheep of the household, misunderstood by his dad and mom and nonetheless looking for himself out, be it by new work ventures or non secular shifts.
Presiding over all of it are dad and mom Naomi Schwartz (voiced by Lisa Edelstein) and Elliot Cooper (voiced by Paul Reiser). The 2 could not be extra completely different. Naomi is overbearing as may be, and all the time able to guilt-trip her kids over the smallest perceived flawed. The sort, but deferent Elliot usually fades to the background by comparability.
With these 5 items, Lengthy Story Quick builds out a TV household that manages to be each grounded and the correct quantity of absurd. Every backseat sibling scuffle or chaotic household dinner feels pulled from actual life, albeit heightened for comedic impact. Even when your experiences do not mirror the Schwoopers’ one-to-one, likelihood is you may nonetheless see grains of your personal household in theirs.
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Lengthy Story Quick‘s time-hopping construction is quietly sensible.
Simply certainly one of many awkward Schwooper household dinners.
Credit score: Netflix
On prime of cementing the Schwoopers’ distinct characters and familial ties proper from the leap, Lengthy Story Quick additionally crafts a wealthy shared historical past for the household that unfurls in revelatory trend from episode to episode.
Lengthy Story Quick‘s episodes do not play out sequentially. As an alternative, every episode presents two vignettes from the Schwoopers’ lives. The primary serves as a chilly open, usually happening within the Schwoopers’ childhoods within the ’90s and early 2000s. Then, as soon as the present’s charming scrapbook title sequence wraps up, Lengthy Story Quick rockets us into the longer term for the primary focus of the episode. These vary from key life occasions like bar mitzvahs to character-centric deep dives.
Years might have handed between vignettes, however Lengthy Story Quick‘s magic trick is progressively revealing how the occasions of the chilly open have stayed with the Schwoopers for his or her complete lives, and the way they proceed to impression their adulthoods.
For instance, Lengthy Story Quick‘s second episode opens with a household seaside journey. As youngsters, Avi and Shira playact lifeguard rescues. Nonetheless, when it is Shira’s flip to be “saved,” Avi decides to run off and play with their older cousins as a substitute. His abandonment and unreliability in that second is why, a few years later, Shira struggles to ask him to be a sperm donor for her and Kendra.
That is simply one of many some ways during which Lengthy Story Quick resurfaces previous household wounds. Every episode collapses the previous into the current, till the Schwoopers’ grownup and little one selves might as nicely be co-existing on display screen. (In some poignant sequences, they really do.)
Hopping between the previous and current is not a brand new tactic in TV. In actual fact, I want some reveals would rely much less on it much less! Nonetheless, in Bob-Waksberg and his staff’s arms, Lengthy Story Quick‘s non-linear chronology turns into a gutting weapon, one which explores how small moments from our childhood — even people who anybody else would possibly discover inconsequential — can have a long-lasting, generally traumatizing impression.
Lengthy Story Quick surrounds its portrayal of a deeply dysfunctional household with sufficient absurdity to maintain issues on the lighter finish. Wolves invade a faculty campus, and nobody bats an eye fixed. Yoshi will get roped into promoting mattresses that are available in tubes. Every storyline is ridiculous, however finally winds up revealing a deeper fact concerning the Schwoopers.
Additional including to the lightness is Lengthy Story Quick‘s animation model, whose vibrant colours and hand-drawn look recall illustrated storybooks, and even household drawings that might earn delight of place on any household fridge.
In fact, in Lengthy Story Quick‘s case, these drawings additionally include their fair proportion of household trauma and thorny parental relationships. However that is household, the present appears to say: You are going to have lots of great, supportive experiences, and also you’re additionally going to get fairly tousled. And in some way, Lengthy Story Quick manages to roll that contradiction into one stunning, heart-wrenching present.
Lengthy Story Quick is now streaming on Netflix.
