The Studio Season 1 Review: A Hilarious and Clever Tribute to Modern Hollywood Filmmaking

When you think of a meta-narrative that focuses on the workings of Hollywood, usually films like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Babylon come to mind. While we recently got a show like that with The Franchise, it didn’t sit well with audiences. Now, Seth Rogen is stepping up to the plate with that concept in The Studio, which is genuinely entertaining overall.

The Studio follows Matt Remick as the newest studio head of Continental Studios, an entertainment company trapped in financial woes. While Remick wants to embrace the indie and intellectual side of things, his colleagues want to maintain the commercial status quo. Stuck between creative and economic liberty, Remick does what he can to get Continental back on its feet.

With an all-star cast that includes Kathryn Hahn, Bryan Cranston, and Catherine O’Hara, The Studio has the makings to be a success. Fortunately, it’s got heart, soul, and just enough celebrity weirdness to be an enjoyable watch.

This is all in due to The Studio‘s main cast, who bring their own unique and refreshing expertise in the characters they portray. Rogen’s Matt is an absolute cinematic fanatic who’s really invested in the process. He strives to follow in Amy’s, his predecessor, footsteps of making award-worthy films, but is too restrained by business.

Matt’s closest friend, Sal Seperstein, is pretty much Matt’s representative, in both good and bad ways. While he tries to impose himself to share the spotlight with Matt, he never has any malice to try and undermine Matt throughout the series. He genuinely wants what’s best for everyone, even if that means being a representative for popcorn movies.

Meanwhile, other characters, like the hip and trendy marketing head Maya and the always-on-hand rising  Quinn, help round out the leads with their own quirks.

Particularly, Hahn pulls out all the stops in making Maya as happily rambunctious as a studio marketer could be with a bit of that fiendish Agatha Harkness touch. Furthermore, Wonders brings a refreshing perspective to the team, essentially representing the free-spirited, “indie” side that Matt has.

However, what makes The Studio as compelling as it is is the relationship between Matt and Amy, who takes up a mentor role in Matt’s life. Past The Studio Season 1 Episode 1 “The Promotion”, the almost mother-son relationship Matt and Amy share is sweet because even though Amy can be comically brash, she still cares about Matt’s career.

Though we spend most of our time through Matt’s perspective, The Studio is able to spend some time with the rest of the cast as they deal with Hollywood’s hijinks. For example, Sal and Quinn literally butt heads to see whose vision gets put to the big screen on The Studio Season 1 Episode 5 “The War”.

Although the character development we get with each of Matt’s friends is somewhat minimal, they’re all still able to contribute with their own opinions with such varying personalities.

Rarely does an extremely characteristically diverse team work with this concept, but The Studio proves that everyone’s got their worth.

Speaking about varying personalities, The Studio is filled to the brim with Hollywood legends, but thankfully uses them wisely. From Martin Scorsese to Zoë Kravitz to Adam Scott and more, these stars never put themselves directly into the spotlight.

Rather, most of these cameos confidently contribute to Matt and the team’s growing experiences on set. On certain episodes, such as The Studio Season 1 Episode 4 “The Missing Reel”, the story does revolve around the guest appearances, but they often make sense in the context of the situation.

The overarching narrative of The Studio doesn’t necessarily occur within a locked timeframe, but instead plays out through multiple points in time leading to this big two-parter finale.

Every episode contains its own specific story with its own visual and cinematographic tone to go with it. However, the satirical, over-the-top comedy remains consistent.

For example, The Studio Season 1 Episode 2 “The Oner” sees Matt wanting to go visit a film in production despite everyone’s wishes due to his overindulgent passion. Here, the camerawork is impeccable as it feels like the episode was completely shot as a one take as Matt tries to continually push his opinions into the picture.

The score also goes hand-in-hand with the cinematography, always keeping you on your feet as it injects this adrenaline into the movement of each story. Season 1 Episode 4 shines in particular for having this jazzy, mystery thriller-esque aesthetic musically.

Albeit, not every episode focuses on the inner workings of filmmaking. As another example, there’s one episode that serves as personal development for Matt.

The Studio Season 1 Episode 6 “The Pediatric Oncologist” explores the challenge of being a reputable person amidst others of higher renown (in a different career.)

Not only does this episode give another shade of complexity to Matt’s already sophisticated character, but also addresses important topic of what it means to do life-changing work.

While each episode is fun to watch, there are some moments that have a slight uncomfortable edge to them. There’s one episode that plays into the extremities of Hollywood’s social problems, which would be somewhat uneasy to watch without the comedic charm.

Still, The Studio works to a tee wherever the comedy is mainly present. The arguments and rationales that involve Matt trying to see the point of each member of his team are fun to watch because it’s truly representing every viewer. Not everyone is a franchise watcher like Sal and Maya and not everyone is a critical film buff like Quinn.

However, each character is succinctly written in a way that really captures the perspectives of most, if not every, movie-goers. The cast chemistry between Rogen, Hahn, Wonders, and Barinholtz is just fun to watch as they navigate Hollywood together.

Incredibly sharp and fascinating, The Studio offers itself as a solid satirical look into the inner workings of Hollywood through its amazing cast, crazy shenanigans, and strong character arcs. Though it does feel like The Studio can be a one-and-done story, it could definitely have potential to explore other things, like company mergers and IP expansion, in the future. 

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The Studio begins streaming on Wednesday, March 26, on Apple TV+.

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