‘Barry’: Master of Tone
Following last week’s exploration of Watchmen and Damon Lindelof’s handle on pace, this week we explore a different show through a different prism. Barry and the genius Bill Hader.
Similarly to Watchmen, this series does a lot of things really well, but one thing better than almost any other show.
Barry has a masterful control over tone.
Now, this might not seem like such a big deal. After all, many television series and even more films have a great grip on their tone and are well stylized. However — most of those stories are built generally within one specific tone and genre. Watchmen is freaky mystery, Nolan is sci-fi ambiguity, Tarantino is Tarantino. They all, generally, stay within the rules of their reality.
Barry, on the other hand, creates two completely distinct rules for itself and jumps in between them flawlessly. It’s creates a completely new handle on the genre drama-comedy; and, dare we say, it’s one of the very few times where this genre actually works.
Barry is, in its core, a deeply tragic story. It’s the exploration of a lost man, a bad man desperately looking for redemption and self-understanding, but constantly making mistakes and being controlled by his emotions. It’s a deeply emotional and complex story, a layered one, too, that has a lot to find within itself and give to the viewers.
Splash on top of that some Bill Hader humor. And put that Bill Haded humor in and around any dramatic scenes. Now you have the distinct tone that Barry does.
The show masterfully jumps from drama to comedy, all within staying in the rules of its reality and the genre it has created for itself. There is really nothing like it. There is no show out there, to our understanding at least, that controls both spectrums, simultaneously, so well.
A great example of this is the following scene (SPOILERS):
For context, NoHo Hank is the main comedy relief of the show. But in this scene, we are reminded who he truly is; we’re reminded that yes, while a funny character, Hank is also a murderer. And then right at the peak of the drama, right at the highlight of the most intense moment, he drives off with generic pop music blasting from his car.
In most other shows/films, this would have been cheap and out of place. But somehow, Barry has established such specific tone for itself — that it works. It works well when they constantly blend drama and comedy. It works great.
And not only that — it is exactly that blend that makes Barry so good. It’s that blend that makes it stand out, that blend that makes it different and engaging. Because at the end of the day, the characters and story in Barry are not that original. But the way those things are presented and the world they exist in — now that we’ve truly never seen before.
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— Pouty Boy