Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The Kominsky Method, more than anything, is a show about grief. Norman Newlander, a Hollywood superagent played with beautiful and grouchy vulnerability by Alan Arkin, loses his beloved wife of 47 years. “I was supposed to die first,” he moans. But he doesn’t. There he stands in his bathrobe, an old man in reasonably good health, alone with his memories in a fancy house in Hancock Park, Los Angeles.
Anyone who’s experienced great loss should be able to relate. Unfortunately, I’m able to relate more than most. In March of 2017, my mother, a vibrant and brilliant woman in her early 70s, died shockingly and suddenly from a lung infection. This left my dad, who was supposed to die first, adrift in a house full of art he didn’t really like and plants he didn’t know how to water.
My father didn’t look like Alan Arkin when he was younger. But time apparently brings Jews closer together, appearance-wise. In his later years, bore a shocking resemblance to Arkin in The Kominsky Method: medium-height, non-existent hairline, acerbic, no-nonsense gruff New Yorker war veteran attitude. Like in the show, his too-big house became a well of loneliness that grew deeper as the months of mourning passed.
In The Kominsky Method, Arkin has a male savior in the form of his best friend, Sandy Kominsky, an aging hipster acting teacher played with hilarious self-effacement by Michael Douglas. Sandy, who has his own problems, brings Norman donuts, he drives Norman home when Norman has one too many at a fundraiser, and, most importantly, he keeps him company. They have a sweet late-life Sunshine Boys bromance when the ladies are clearly seeking more priapic pastures.
My dad had his own version of Sandy Kominsky. His best friend was Steve, a dentist who retired, grew his remaining hair long and curly, took classes at the community college, and became, in retirement, an accomplished sculptor. They had a similar dynamic. Steve, who himself was still married, would take my dad to Costco, or the doctor, and also to another doctor. He filled the long and lonely days with bullshitting when my sisters and I couldn’t.
The Kominsky Method captures this dynamic so well. It’s full of laughs, but captures a very particular kind of tragedy. Arkin’s character suffers from grief, and from an ungrateful daughter, but he wants for nothing materially. Because this is a show created by Chuck Lorre, Newlander has a bottomless pocketbook. My dad didn’t have the exact same setup. But he still grieved in a nice house in a nice neighborhood, with nice people checking up on him all the time. Still, at 10 PM, there he sat at the kitchen table, head in his hands, wondering what had happened to him. There are plenty of scenes in The Kominsky Method where Alan Arkin wanders at night, talking to his wife’s ghost. Nothing could feel more real to me.
This show has its flaws. Women feel unimportant. The excellent actress Sarah Baker mostly rolls her eyes as Douglas’ put-upon daughter, and Arkin’s pill-head daughter is a ludicrous, shrieking stereotype. Nancy Travis doesn’t take much guff when Douglas puts the moves on her, but she also doesn’t get a lot of character development. It’s nice to see Ann-Margaret in some scenes as a widow who takes pity on Arkin. But the only woman portrayed with any real depth is Arkin’s wife, and she’s dead.
The scenes in Douglas’ acting classes are often cute, but also cover territory trod better, and more dramatically, in Barry. Some of the surprise guest stars seem fun at first, but after a while it starts to feel a bit like Alter Kocker Entourage. And because Lorre is so cluelessly nonchalant about money, when Arkin and Douglas were tooling around a mostly-traffic-free Southern California in Douglas’ vintage Mercedes, I was wondering if I was watching some weird Earth-2 version of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.
But the show always comes back to grief. It takes its time laying gentle humor onto a deeply sad story. No matter how much money Norman Newlander has, and whether or not Sandy Kominsky once banged Jessica Lange in a hot tub, now they’re just two lonely old men, holding on to each other through the storm.
Unfortunately, my father didn’t have a gentle ending. Bernie Pollack died on December 21, alone on an unmade bed in the independent-living apartment to which he’d moved far too late. He’d been sick for a long time, since well before my mother died. No amount of caring from friends and family was going to help him. The Kominsky Method gives us hope and laughter. But real life serves as a reminder. These kinds of stories, I figured, never have happy endings.
Then again, I just received word from my sister that Steve and his wife have donated to sponsor a seeing-eye-dog puppy who will be named Bernie, after my dad. My sisters and I will get to receive updates on puppy Bernie and get to track his progress. Maybe something similar will happen on Season 2 of The Kominsky Method.
Neal Pollack is the author of ten bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction. His latest novel is the sci-fi satire Keep Mars Weird. He lives in Austin, Texas.
