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Atlanta (2016)

2016 · Comedy,Drama,Music · contemporary-realistic, slice-of-life-surrealist

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Atlanta is a genre-defying prestige comedy-drama that uses the Atlanta hip-hop scene as a launching pad for surrealist, socially incisive storytelling about Black American life. Donald Glover created and stars as Earn, a Princeton dropout managing his rapper cousin Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), alongside the mercurial Darius (LaKeith Stanfield) and Earn's girlfriend Van (Zazie Beetz). The show is tonally slippery — funny and dark, grounded and surreal, episodic and formally adventurous — with bottle episodes, anthology digressions, and dream logic that make it feel unlike any other show on television. Its ideal viewer wants to think and laugh simultaneously, appreciates character texture over plot momentum, and is drawn to work that treats race, class, and identity with both rigor and absurdist wit.

From the reviewers

The comedy and tragedy mix as happens in real life. The often brutal reality of being young and black and poor in America fuses seamlessly with more existential themes of growth (personal and professional), family, race, power dynamics, legacy and much more.
The dialogue, the script, the chemistry of the characters. Amazing. The dynamic of the characters is broad. I feel invested. I actually feel like it's true life.
I find myself laughing at the strangest and most uncomfortable situations while thinking of the scene and story at the same time. Why is he making me feel and think about the horrible situation while at the same time being entertaining and funny.
The storyline works like a drama but the perspective works like a comedy. This is much like the movie and show Parenthood; the storyline is not really a comedy but misery loving company can be funny. Atlanta works out the same way with the plot filtered through the lens of dark humor seen in Married with Children and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
it's not really interested in what might have been its own central story. If you want to follow their rise to stardom, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed... it very quickly starts to tell stories more about the African American experience, rather than specifically about these characters

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