This will-they-won’t-they between a rabbi and a sex podcaster is as funny, sweet, scabrous and romantic as comedy gets. Everybody will want this …
There have been three genuinely cute meet-cutes in my viewing life. One was when Harry met Sally (whatever he and she thought of it and each other at the time. You guys!). The second was the dog-injuring boob flash in Colin from Accounts (you really had to be there) two years ago. The third is between Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Noah (Adam Brody) in the new Netflix comedy Nobody Wants This.
Lemme tell you – everybody wants this. It’s the funniest, sweetest, most scabrous, most romantic, most real thing we’ve seen since – well, since Colin from Accounts. Bell plays a freewheeling thirtysomething woman who hosts an increasingly successful podcast with her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe) about sex and relationships (latest episode – Dildo’s and Dildon’ts). She is as agnostic-pretty-much-atheist as the next thirtysomething gentile-about-town. Brody plays a rabbi who has just broken up with his long-term girlfriend who, along with both their families, expected him to propose imminently. Noah is a progressive rabbi but one who still – “though I play up the Torah bad boy vibe” – is clear that he is “all in on this thing”. He and Joanne meet at a party and the attraction is instant, mutual and ever more difficult to resist. It is also that rarest thing – utterly convincing to the audience.
