‘Lessons in Chemistry’ Review: Brie Larson Shines in Delightful and Profound New Apple Series
Brie Larson in Apple’s “Lessons in Chemistry,”
The first episode of Apple TV’s new show Lessons in Chemistry didn’t really sit well with me. After an excellent in media res opener, we meet Brie Larson’s Elizabeth Zott as a chemist in the 1950s working as a lab tech subject to great levels of misogyny. Not only is she repeatedly misidentified as a secretary, but she is also pretty much forced against her will to participate in a beauty contest for her male colleague’s delight and treated as a second-class citizen in the scientific organization she works at and which she could very well be leading. While gender equality in the workplace, even in the scientific realm, is still very far away from being a reality, it’s not enough in 2023 to have a story solely rest on the shoulders of a mistreated female character by her opposite-sex coworkers, to have her rise to the occasion while surrounded by plot armor, so we can feel good about ourselves by watching her succeed and her colleagues fail. We’ve been there, we’ve done that. So to start an eight-episode series with that premise was slightly off-putting, to say the least. I am so glad I kept watching, though.
Every now and then, there comes a show completely out of left field that just floors you. Apple did this last year with Bad Sisters, and though it may not be at the levels of an HBO show, Lee Eisenberg’s Lessons in Chemistry, which is adapted from the book by Bonnie Garmus, is an absolute delight and one of the best series I’ve seen this year outside of the Succession house. Yes, the show is very much about femininity and representation, and what that means today and what it meant in the 1950s. It takes creative liberties with its depiction of the era and has no problem aligning the plot so that all the pieces fall in the right places to tell the story it wants. But it’s not just about that — there’s so much more here that the show is trying to convey. It treats themes of excellence and brightness while also mixed in with racial inequality, gender roles, motherhood, love, and grief. What does being alive mean for someone as rigid as the structure of the molecules she’s dedicated her life to studying, as meticulous in her actions and the way she expresses herself as she is in her own lab research?
(L-R) Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman in Apple’s “Lessons in Chemistry”.
Once it departs it slightly-clichéd first episode, the story takes off and never really stops. Larson’s Elizabeth Zott is rarely the driver in the car that is her own life, as the males around her seem to hold the keys. That unexpectedly changes when she meets Calvin (an exceptional Lewis Pullman), who can’t wrap his head around his own colleagues not appreciating Elizabeth’s intelligence because of what’s not between her legs. Their love story is what puts the show together, the rare relationship that comes across as sincere and completely selfless, that got the best out of the two of them and made each of them better for being in it. That doesn’t happen without great writing and two magnificent performances bringing it to life. Lessons in Chemistry also uses the classic mystery box recipe to keep the audience engaged on a couple of issues that mainly surround the character of Calvin — and the payoff is quite satisfying, even if a little plot convenient.
Circumstantces in life eventually force Elizabeth to leave her scientific career and get into TV, hosting a highly-successful cooking show that, despite the efforts of an angry Rainn Wilson as the TV station chief, manages to reach many underappreciated women in their living rooms as they get the dinner table ready for their husbands and children. Elizabeth is able to inspire them, and she isn’t even trying at first — she doesn’t realize tht she has a platform that people care about, respect, and pay close attention to. None of what she’s doing is appreciated or even understood by the men surrounding her or those living with the target audience of the cooking show “Supper at Six”. The value of what Elizabeth is doing doesn’t come from an active effort to rally the troops against her, but rather the fact that she treats the audience with respect, dignity, and doesn’t really talk down to them. While pulling this off, the show does, from time to time, fall into some of the clichés of other feminist shows, but not enough to be distracting and pull you out as a viewer.
(L-R) Stephanie Koenig, Kevin Sussman and Brie Larson in Apple’s “Lessons in Chemistry”.
Most of that is accomplished through Larson’s extremely powerful turn as the main character. It’s not a showy performance by any means, but over the course of eight episodes, her character experiences a very wide range of emotions that the actress is able to convey through very subtle movements and facial expressions. Her posture while being on the lab trying to get noticed by her superiors is completely different from the self-assured way she stands while being in front of the cameras of “Supper at Six”; the character experiences loss and tragedy, but also unapologetic love (in more than one face) and happiness, and we are able to believe it all.
Lessons in Chemistry has a little bit of everything across its eight-episode season, and that’s precisely its strength. There’s much to love about it, and each episode has a lot of tender moments intertwined with poignant scenes. It’s a feel good series but it also touches on so many different subjects that may be sensitive to viewers, including racial disparities and police brutality — this comes from a subplot surrounding Elizabeth’s primarily Black neighborhood being at risk of having a freeway constructed on their backyards. That will lead to loud protests over race inequalities that will only be exacerbated by kicking people out of their homes, but it plays a pivotal role in Elizabeth’s arc in the show. And that is ultimately the key here: that despite so many themes and storylines, the show feels coherent and never loses focus, which kind of feels like a miracle these days.
Lessons in Chemistry starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on October 13.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
