DAVID BIANCULLI

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NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
RUSSIAN DOLL
February 1, 2019  | By David Bianculli

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

 

MINISERIES PREMIERE: Actress Natasha Lyonne and comedian Amy Poehler teamed with Sleeping with Other People writer Leslye Headland to create this new limited series, a sort of slightly darker spin on Groundhog Day. Lyonne, familiar as Nicky in Orange Is the New Black (and, long before that, as Opal in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), plays Nadia, a young New York single woman – who could have been a girl from Girls – who wakes to the sound of Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up” and attends a party in her honor. But from that point on, everything spirals out of control, until she dies. And then wakes up to the same song, confronting a slightly different reality. Rinse and repeat – and while I watched all of Russian Doll with interest, it seemed too slight when it finally reached a concrete end. Worth the voyage? Probably. Satisfying aftertaste? Depends on your enthusiasm up to that point. But Lyonne is good throughout, and it’s fun to see Elizabeth Ashley in a small role as Nadia’s therapist. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
 
 
 
 
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