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James Franco: "Freaks and Geeks"

 Paul Feig is a name in American homes because of "Bridesmaids" and "The Heat," but I think his best work may have occurred in the "Freaks and Geeks" era.


Several seasons before Jason Katims's "Friday Night Lights," Feig was exploring identity and social norms (and, actually, I think Feig's work is sometimes smarter and subtler than FNL). Both Katims and Feig had--and have--an interest in the idea of acting out.

In FNL, the Taylor daughter becomes a third wheel in a messy marriage; this is too much to handle, so she "opts out" by crashing her car. 

In "Freaks and Geeks," a high-school freshman, Neal, discovers that his father is having an affair. He believes that he can't disclose the info to his mother, because he doesn't want to "ruin a life." So--in a thrilling twist--he takes up ventriloquism. He has an obvious talent; he understands that his role is to say what can't be said, as if he were the Fool in "King Lear." He wins attention with his new act--but, also, he needs to let the world know that he is in serious pain, so his "figure" begins crossing bold lines. (The dummy compares an innocent bystander's teeth to "hockey-player teeth," and he suggests that a certain dentist is inventing fictional gum-care crises to "fund the construction of a new wing on the beach house.")

A melodrama simply points out the obvious, but Feig uses a standard melodramatic scenario to make fresh observations. He isn't interested in a marital fight; he is interested in how a savvy mom masks her pain to protect her little kid. Similarly, Feig sometimes points his camera at a drug den, but his focus isn't on "addiction-story" cliches; instead, Feig asks what happens to the son who observes that his mother isn't capable of parenting. (That kid, a mesmerizing James Franco, dyes his hair silver and gets kicked in the head, in the middle of a mosh pit. "Just another war wound....")

Feig is an inspiration; in an earlier decade, he would have been writing novels. "Freaks and Geeks" sometimes feels like Richard Yates Country--just disguised as a TV show, and using a flashy, rhyming title.
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