‘After Life’: ‘Angry’ Ricky Gervais vs the world
Ricky Gervais with his dog Brandy
For catty comedians like Ricky Gervais, there’s nothing they can say that someone, somewhere, won’t misinterpret and find offensive in the age of social media. “There’s always something for someone to get offended by,” he says.
That is precisely why the Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning actor didn’t find it worrisome when some netizens reacted negatively to a short sequence in the trailer of “After Life,” the six-episode “dramedy” series on Netflix that he wrote, directed and stars in (which launches globally today).
Foulmouthed schoolboy
In the scene, Tony Johnson (Ricky) snaps back at a fat and foulmouthed schoolboy named Robbie (Thomas Bastable) who’s making life a living hell for his “smaller and weaker” classmates, by calling him “tubby ginger c*nt.”
Inappropriate words indeed for a 57-year-old actor to be saying to a trash-talking boy who doesn’t know better.
But, as they say, context is everything: When we watched the series to check out the alleged “offensive” clip, it has Tony, the “angry to the world” character Ricky portrays, saying hello to his nephew George (Tommy Finnegan) at the schoolyard when the class bully calls him a “pedo” (pedophile).
And that is exactly the sort of abuse Tony needs to unleash his ammunition against the brutal world he’s forced to navigate without his perfect wife.
In episode 5, when Robbie begins to pick on George, Tony reacts by threatening to murder the 10-year-old in his sleep with a hammer! How harsh.
Regardless of its validity or justification, the reason behind former Mr. Nice Guy Tony’s penchant for self-destruction is nothing short of heartbreaking.
Ricky Gervais with Roisin Conaty (as a hooker) and Julia Dearden (as a nun)
Unbearable grief
“After Life” examines how people come to terms with unbearable grief.
Tony, a seasoned journalist at a local newspaper, sees his whole world crumble when Lisa (Kerry Godliman), his wife of 25 years, succumbs to cancer.
He goes from nice to “nega,” just raring to punish humanity as a result of his loss. Being mean is his way of coping with death and longing—and rudeness has become his superpower.
As his exasperated friend describes him, he’s like “a troll on Twitter—just because you’re upset, everybody has to be miserable, too.”
As Tony explains to both his shrink (Paul Kaye) and his worried brother-in-law Matt (Tom Basden), “Now I can say what the f*ck I want. Then, when it all gets too much, I can always kill myself.”
Except for his nephew, his confidant Anne (Penelope Wilton) and his beloved dog Brandy, nobody crosses paths with the insult-hurling Tony and goes home unscathed—including his coworkers Lenny (Tony Way), Kath (Diane Morgan) and Sandy (Mandeep Dhillon), his drug supplier Julian (Tim Plester), the hooker Roxy he pays to wash his dirty dishes (Roisin Conaty), and his Alzheimer’s disease-stricken father’s nurse Emma (Ashley Jensen), who calls him out for his impertinence and disrespectful ways.
It takes viewers a while to warm up to Tony because Ricky Gervais is an actor who never makes it his business to become more likable to his audience. In fact, he’s most effective at what he does when he’s meaner.
Ricky’s cruel irreverence calls to mind a segment in the HBO documentary, “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling,” that shows the painful-to-watch impasse between Ricky and Garry, who died in 2016, when the former decided to shoot a segment of his comedy show in Garry’s house without prior notice. Now that was awkward!
Provocateur
But it’s this “ticking bomb” persona that plays well to Ricky’s strengths as a top comic, agitator and provocateur, so you eventually give him a chance and “play along.”
It doesn’t hurt that he’s surrounded by flawed, imperfect characters whose inherent kindness grows on viewers while they let Tony’s abusive behavior slide. They give him ample time to lick his wounds and realize that “not everyone is out to get you.”
Moreover, the way films are created at Netflix has allowed the actor-director to take bolder risks and push things a little further.
While Tony does his best to do his worst, his “support group” patiently waits for him to come around as they try to save the nice guy they used to know.
