Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mr. Corman’ On Apple TV+, Where Joseph Gordon-Levitt Plays A Teacher Who Thinks His Only Luck Is Bad

Can you believe Joseph Gordon-Levitt is 40? We can’t. We’ve been seeing him on our screens since he was 8 years old, and when he started on 3rd Rock From The Sun in 1996, he was already a veteran at 16. He hasn’t been afraid to play guys who have been slapped around by life, though, and in Mr. Corman, he’s created a show where he plays someone who is slapped around by life on a daily basis. It’s supposed to be a comedy, but is it at all funny?

MR. CORMAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see collages of images pop up on screen as we hear a rhythmic slapping noise. Then we see hands slapping. Next we see that a man is slapping those rhythms against his bare chest to the point where it’s red. Then the collages disappear and we see the man in his shower.

The Gist: That man is Josh Corman (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who had ambitions to be a rock star but now teaches fifth grade in the San Fernando Valley. He loves his students, even when one of them challenges him when he says that Sacagawea was Louis and Clark’s “female guide” instead of just leaving the “female” part off.

For the most part, though, Josh is a bundle of “What ifs?” When the subject of luck comes up in class, and a student asks him if he considers himself lucky, he says he does, but the look on his face says otherwise. He goes into his apartment and immediately lies down. That night, he and his roommate Victor (Auturo Castro), whom he’s been friends with since they were kids, try to figure out what to do on a Friday night besides sit at home and play video games. Surely, now that they’re grown-ups and have the world at their disposal, they can think of something better to do.

But he and Victor end up playing video games with their buddies. Josh is so frustrated that when his mother Ruth (Debra Winger) calls him to give her a ride home from a bar, he jumps at the chance. On their ride home, he tells her that he hasn’t played music in over a year. When she tells him that “all that matters is family,” he gets really depressed, since his family is basically his mom and sister.

After dropping Ruth off, he decides to go to one of his old hangouts. He meets a young woman there who seems to be intrigued about his job as a teacher, but is just plain attracted to him. They go back to her much nicer apartment, where she can tend to her yappy little dog, but once they get going, Josh finds that he can’t stay aroused. She tries to be sympathetic, but his bitterness leads to some nastiness on both sides, ending in a slap for the ages. The following Monday, after work, he starts noodling with his keyboard for the first time in a year.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Mr. Corman has the plot-free feeling of shows like Louie (for better or worse), where the dramatic and comedic propulsion comes from the main character trying to live a better life than anything plot-driven.

Our Take: Levitt created Mr. Corman, and he also wrote and directed the first episode; veteran sitcom producer (and New Yorker cartoonist) Bruce Eric Kaplan is also an executive producer and writer. Levitt has said that this is a very personal story, and we can see that. It’s how he might imagine himself at 40 if he didn’t get the breaks in show business that he did, reaching all the way back to when he was 8 years old.

But here’s the thing about that vision: We’re not sure if we want to see it, or if we care about Josh and his sad sack view of his life. We all know people like Josh, and there’s likely a piece of Josh in all of us. It’s the part of us that looks at our messy homes, our crazy days, our unfulfilled goals and constantly wallow in “What if?”. This is the type of behavior you go to therapy to figure out how to rise above. Watching someone swimming in his own shit stew of misery and get increasingly stressed out by it, isn’t something that’s appealing to watch.

That being said, we enjoyed Levitt’s tortured performance in the first two episodes for his natural ability to show just how unsatisfied he is with life. In the second episode, he has an anxiety attack and doesn’t know how to deal with it. Every time the anxiety surges, scary musical notes thump out, as if we’re inside Josh’s head. While the music was annoying, it was also a great way to convey the building anxiety in Josh, because it made us anxious to watch.

Creativity like that, whether it’s an example like the one above, or the visual representations of his music or getting slapped by the woman he insults, are what’s going to keep us watching the show. At some point, we’ll get to meet Megan (Juno Temple), Josh’s ex, and that might help viewers get to the root of his roiling dissatisfaction. And, while he may not completely buy into the notion, there may come a point where it’s made clear to Josh that he is pretty lucky, all things considered, and that the aspects of his life he was so frustrated with are actually the bright spots.

We think we need to get this from Mr. Corman. Otherwise, watching ten episodes of Josh being whiny and miserable will just lead us to turn it off and go watch Schmigadoon! again.

Sex and Skin: The sex between Josh and the woman he picked up at the bar is very basic-cable friendly.

Parting Shot: As Josh noodles with his keyboard, we see the room get dark, and we keep hearing him writing a song over the closing credits.

Sleeper Star: Arturo Castro has been underrated hilarious in every show he does, but he does yeoman’s work here as Victor. He somehow can put up with his friend’s misery and actively wants to help his buddy feel better, as we see during the second episode’s funniest moment.

Most Pilot-y Line: “The only people who become teachers are people who wanted to do something else, but gave up,” snarls the woman Josh failed to have sex with. Wow, that’s pretty on the nose, isn’t it?

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re giving a thumbs-up to Mr. Corman purely on Levitt’s performance and the performances of the supporting cast. But we’re hoping that Levitt’s character finds at least a little bit of satisfaction in his life during the first season, or else it’s going to be a very tough season to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Mr. Corman On Apple TV+