Rockstar or rock bottom? Jared Leto (pictured with Anne Hathaway) plays disgraced WeWork founder Adam Neumann in Apple TV’s drama,WeCrashed.

Rockstar or rock bottom? Jared Leto (pictured with Anne Hathaway) plays disgraced WeWork founder Adam Neumann in Apple TV’s drama,WeCrashed.Credit:Peter Kramer

How would you like to pay to work in a little glass office while a bunch of hipsters play table-tennis and go indoor rock-climbing outside? That’s the nightmarish dream that enabled Adam and Rebekah Neumann (Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway) to turn their little New York real-estate rental business into a $US47billion behemoth that masqueraded as both a tech firm and a social movement.

Then they ran into a spot of bother.

At first,viewers could be forgiven for thinking they’d mistakenly pressed “play” onPam&Tommy (Disney+). It’s 2019 and it’s quite the rock-star lifestyle that WeWork founder Adam is living – waking up hungover,he has a procession of servants keeping him in a very specific kind of domestic decadence.

But this is obviously a long way down the track. We’re soon whisked back 12 years earlier,to when the Israel-born entrepreneur was struggling to get a toehold in business – any business. Leto adopts a heavy accent and an almost bug-eyed intensity as Neumann runs about trying to sell onesies with knee pads for crawling babies,women’s shoes with collapsible high heels and – most presagefully of all – the idea of college-dormitory style communal living for people who can’t afford New York rents.

Adam and Rebekah Neumann (Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway) turned a little New York real-estate business into a multi-billion behemoth that masqueraded as both a tech firm and a social movement.

Adam and Rebekah Neumann (Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway) turned a little New York real-estate business into a multi-billion behemoth that masqueraded as both a tech firm and a social movement.Credit:Peter Kramer

It’s around this time that he meets the aimless Rebekah Paltrow (Hathaway),daughter of millionaire businessman Robert and cousin of actor Gwyneth. She’s busy affecting an aura of aloof tranquillity while teaching yoga for a pittance,and the rest is about to be recent history.

The series,which is based on the podcast seriesWeCrashed:The Rise and Fall of WeWork by American journalist David Brown,is rich in detail when it comes to defining vignettes from Adam Neumann’s rapid rise. What it doesn’t do in the first drop of three episodes is give any sense of the charisma that you’d expect such an astonishingly successful salesman to have. From the very start he seems like a lunatic of the kind you’d cross the street to avoid – never mind investing in his company or joining his booze-fuelled corporate cult.

Rebekah is the more compelling and complex figure,and Hathaway gives a powerful performance of a woman tortured by a howling emptiness inside,one who despises her father’s phoniness but will say anything to get whatshe wants,and encourages her husband to do the same. Intriguing in a way you mightn’t expect.

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Three Months ★★★½
Paramount+

Australian singer Troye Sivan plays a gay teen in Florida who contracts AIDS in Three Months.

Australian singer Troye Sivan plays a gay teen in Florida who contracts AIDS in Three Months.Credit:Marc Schmidt

Australian singer Troye Sivan brings a compelling,spiky vulnerability to this affecting comedy-drama about a gay Florida teenager whose first sexual encounter leaves him with an agonising three-month wait to find out whether he has contracted HIV.

Writer-director Jared Frieder sets his story in 2011 but the film’s vibe recalls the laid-back indie slacker comedies of the ’90 –Clerks in particular. Convenience-store clerk Caleb (Sivan) has already been dealing with a lot – he lost his father;his Orthodox Jewish mother disowned him for being gay;and he has been raised by his kindly grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) and her partner (Louis Gossett Jr).

New dramas loom with Caleb’s best friend and co-worker (Brianne Tju),their boss (Judy Greer) and a newfound friend (Viviek Kalra) who is enduring his own terrifying three-month wait. The film is a heartfelt elegy for innocence,and a haunting reminder of real losses – searching for a compass point,Caleb searches out old episodes of MTV’sThe Real World,in which Pedro Zamora made television history by sharing his HIV diagnosis. Retro in aesthetic,timeless in relevance.

The Circus
Stan,new episodes Mondays

John Heilemann reports from Poland in the new season of political reportage series The Circus.

John Heilemann reports from Poland in the new season of political reportage series The Circus.Credit:Showtime/AP

Just when you think there isn’t enough going on to justify another season of the up-to-the-minute,brogues-on-the-ground American political wonkery ofThe Circus,something happens. This time it’s Russia invading Ukraine ahead of mid-term elections that could leave Joe Biden a lame duck. With journalist John Heilemann now in Poland and the rest of the team fanning out across the US,there’s plenty of inside access and interesting viewpoints as this grimly compelling series tries to gauge the domestic political ramifications of the chaos.

Winter on Fire:Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom
Netflix

A scene from the Oscar-nominated 2015 documentary Winter on Fire:Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom.

A scene from the Oscar-nominated 2015 documentary Winter on Fire:Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom.

This Oscar-nominated 2015 documentary is packed with shocking footage and testimony from those who survived the Euromaidan protests that forced Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014. The sheer courage,unity and ferocity of the protesters – who refused to back down in the face of ever more nakedly murderous violence from special police units and hired thugs – makes the tenacious Ukrainian resistance to the current Russian invasion much less surprising in retrospect. Essential viewing.

How I Met Your Father
Disney+

Chris Lowell in the spinoff sitcom How I Met Your Father.

Chris Lowell in the spinoff sitcom How I Met Your Father.Credit:Patrick Wymore/Hulu

Not even the sunny charm and well-honed comedic talents of Hilary Duff can save thisHow I Met Your Mother spinoff from being the stinker that it is. The time-travel element here isn’t so much the bits in which Kim Cattrall plays Duff’s character as an older woman,but in the way in which the whole thing drags us back to the darkest days of corny American network sitcoms whose terminally arthritic jokes limped to the laugh track to be put out of their misery. Also starring Christopher Lowell.

Great News
Netflix

It’s a hoot just to watch the frazzled friendship between overworked,underappreciated TV news producer Katie Wendelson (Briga Heelan) and her hyper-talkative,unfiltered New Jersey mum,Carol (Difficult People’s Andrea Martin) – whose new gig as a mature-age intern at Katie’s show brings Katie a whirlwind of mortification and aggravation. But series creator Tracey Wigfield (30 Rock) crams the studio with other hilarious characters brilliantly cast,not least the privileged thought-bubbling newsreader played by a slyly hilarious Nicole Richie.

Find out the next TV,streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees.Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.

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