This was published 2 years ago
Ben Stiller’s Severance is a dystopian thriller worth sticking with
By Karl Quinn
SEVERANCE
Apple TV+
New episode each Friday
★★★★
Although it was conceived before the COVID-19 pandemic wrought havoc on our ability to maintain any division between work and home life, Severance speaks to the moment perfectly.
The central premise involves a surgical procedure whereby an implant creates an impermeable barrier between work brain and non-work brain. In a time when the off-switch has all but disappeared, who can’t see at least some appeal in that?
Adam Scott plays a middle manager at the mysterious Lumon Industries in Ben Stiller’s Severance.Credit: Atsushi Nishijima
Our hero is Mark (Adam Scott), a perkily upbeat middle manager who leads a small team of data processors at Lumon Industries who have all – according to their own video testimonies – voluntarily undergone the severance procedure pioneered by the company. None of them really understands the work they do, but each of them has their own reason for undergoing severance. In Mark’s case, it’s a way of keeping his grief over the death of his wife at bay, for eight hours a day at least.
The newest recruit is Helly (Britt Lower), and she’s a disrupter, her “innie” self (the worker) refusing to accept that her “outie” would have chosen this path for her. She wants out, but the process is irreversible. Or so supervisor Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and manager Peggy (Patricia Arquette) would have them believe. But is there truth to the rumours of reintegration – and if it’s possible, is it actually what anyone wants?
Although Ben Stiller is lead director and executive producer, Severance (which was created by Dan Erickson) isn’t exactly a comedy. Occasional moments of surreal humour aside, this is a dystopian workplace horror, a welcome addition to an emerging genre that includes Lapsis, Sorry to Bother You, Devs and Living With Yourself (with echoes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).
What are we doing here?: Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower) and Irving (John Turturro) wonder what it’s all about.Credit: Apple TV+
It’s a nightmare vision of late capitalism, in which techno-corporates inveigle their way into the most private of spaces – the brain, the body, the soul, memory, desire – in order to extract maximum productivity. They pay lip service to words like choice, care and compassion but really their only concern is profit.
According to the thinking of founder Kier Eagan – his every thought captured in three volumes of the Compliance Handbook – the Lumon employee will find the greatest realisation of his or herself through utter devotion to the company and its goals.
It sounds like North Korean socialism, but it also has its real-world corollary in the ethos of certain sales-oriented corporations and some big-tech companies whose founders and leaders are hailed as visionary prophets, and whose products and services are hailed as harbingers of utopia.
Beyond the critique, Severance is a meticulously plotted thriller in which the ultimate questions are all about freedom. Can Mark win it? Does he really want it? Will it make him happier? Is an integrated self in fact freer, or happier, than a segregated one? And is freedom from grief really such a desirable goal?
But it moves so slowly that many viewers might be tempted to sever the relationship long before the end. I’d urge them to hang in there.
The rewards do come, eventually, and they’re enough not only to justify staying to the end, but also to encourage you to reintegrate for the second season that’s already in the works.
Email the author at kquinn@theage.com.au, or follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin
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