Nobody Wants This

Netflix | ★★★✩✩

I’m a sucker for a good rom-com. I’d put When Harry Met Sally up there in the top ten films ever made. But the crucial word is “good”. Because it often – usually, in fact – now seems that every conceivable rom-com plot angle has been done to death, meaning that producers and writers resort to coming up with ludicrous stories in a desperate bid to be “original” and “break the rom-com mould”.

Which brings us to Nobody Wants This, the first in a new genre (please, God, no): the rabbi rom-com for goys. Stuck for new ideas? Heh, what could be funnier than a rabbi falling in love with a shiksa (and yes, that’s the word used throughout Nobody Wants This).

But Rabbi Noah is no ordinary rabbi. He is a hot rabbi played by Adam Brody, once of teen hit series The O.C. So hot, in fact, that when the said shiksa, sex podcast host Joanne, meets him at a dinner party, she – oh, so hilariously – doesn’t realise he is any sort of rabbi. Much confusion, and a TV series, ensues.

If I sound snooty, it’s because I am. I won’t give away the various plot twists because… well, we’ll come to that. But the premise is plain stupid. Not because a rabbi wouldn’t ever fall in love with a non-Jew but because Joanne (played by Kristen Bell, who seems to be dialling it in) is a truly horrible, narcissistic, whining, and actually rather stupid cardboard cut-out character. She doesn’t realise pork isn’t kosher, for example, and brings prosciutto as a gift to the rabbi’s mother, Bina. Hilarious, eh? Meanwhile, Noah is simply perfect: handsome, witty, loyal, forgiving, kind to the elderly and fearsomely bright. I mean, come on. There is no attempt to make either of the main characters more than The Rabbi and The Shiksa. It’s so lazy.

Here come the “but”, though. Despite on one level hating Nobody Wants This (a title that writes its own jokes), I actually quite enjoyed it. First, because it’s so rare to see a mainstream drama or comedy that doesn’t treat rabbis as some sort of freaks, but more generally because not only are the supporting case uniformly excellent, but the episodic issues that are brought up as part of Joanne and Noah’s relationship are well done. Take the overbearing Jewish mother, for instance.  Yes, she’s a caricature, but she’s made to seem human rather than the usual monster.

So I will leave the spoilers, because you might enjoy it, too.

As to that supporting cast: Timothy Simons (Veep’s Jonah Ryan) is wonderful as Noah’s hen-pecked (what else is he going to be in a show like this?) brother. In fact I would be totally up for a show built around Simons’ character and his wife, played by Jackie Tohn, who brilliantly captures the cliched brittle, harsh but actually protective Jewish wife (so long as it also starred Tovah Feldshuh as their mum, Bina). And Succession’s Justine Lupe somehow manages to turn the cipher role as Joanne’s sister into something compelling.

So here’s my suggestion for season two: switch things around. Dump Joanne and Noah into minor roles and give the rest their fun in the sun.

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Nobody Wants This was released on September 26.