It had begun to seem that Jon Hamm, whatever other roles he might appear in, was destined to be forever remembered exclusively as Mad Men’s Don Draper. Character and actor had made such a perfect fit that it was impossible to prise them apart. I always liked the idea of Hamm as a retro-James Bond set in Ian Fleming’s original 1950s period, but they wouldn’t listen.
So Hamm must be ecstatic with his new role as Andrew “Coop” Cooper in Your Friends & Neighbors, since it appears that lightning has struck twice. Cooper is a Manhattan hedge fund executive at a company called Bailey Russell. He’s wealthy, successful and jaded, and at 48 is beginning to ask those “is that it?” kind of questions. You could almost subtitle it Don Draper – the Sequel.
Coop’s marriage to wife Mel (Amanda Peet, pictured below) has broken down, and she’s now shacked up in the former family home in moneyed Westmont Village with Nick (Mark Tallman). Nick is an ex-NBA basketball player and now ex-friend of Coop, who can barely contain his vengeful urges when he comes anywhere near him. Coop does his best to be a good father (and tennis coach) to daughter Tori (Isabel Gravitt), who’s aiming to get into Princeton, and son Hunter (Donovan Colan), who permanently walks around wearing headphones and is hustling Coop to buy him a new drum kit.
Your Friends… is written by novelist and screenwriter Jonathan Tropper, and sparkles with irony, black humour and shrewd psychological insights. After a brief shock opening, the first episode kicks off with a blinder of a scene where Coop is approached in a Manhattan bar by Liv Cross (Kitty Hawthorne), who turns out to be a junior employee at his company. She’s escaping the unwelcome attentions of some over-refreshed young males, and the conversation with Coop soon turns to seduction. A topic with which he is evidently familiar.
The banter pings back and forth, with dialogue which Preston Sturges wouldn’t be ashamed of. Coop: “I could be your father.” Liv: “I have one already.” Coop delivers his forecast of how their theoretical affair might develop. In 20 years’ time he’ll be worrying about his disappearing hair and his prostate, and “every time you leave the house I’ll wonder what young stud you’ll be fucking.” Liv: “Really? Are you that insecure?” Coop: “Well not yet, but I will be.”
It's a scene that brilliantly frames Hamm's character and gives the viewer all the tools required to get stuck into the drama. It also has tumultuous consequences, when Coop’s brutal and cynical boss Jack Bailey (Corbin Bernsen, though unrecognisable as the Corbin Bernsen who used to be in L.A. Law) uses it as leverage to give Coop the sack. This amounts to Midlife Crisis 2 and Coop’s personal Black Friday, especially as the monstrous Bailey is even going to appropriate the money Coop has amassed in his personal capital account.
It’s hard work finding a new job, not least because he’s bound by a two-year “non-solicit” clause. What will he do? How will he survive? For the time being at least, he’s still on the Westmount Village social circuit, with its Oakwood Country Club and its $100k membership fee, and Tropper has some social-satire fun with the gossip and backstabbing of the wives assembled round the pool. And he still gets invited to parties, by various old friends, at their ludicrously lavish country estates, though now he’s a kind of ghostly peripheral figure, bitterly recalling how he used to be the apogee of the high-achieving professional family man.
But it’s at one of these parties that he gets drunk, goes for a wander round the house and is flabbergasted by the amount of valuables (like $200k Richard Mille watches) and bundles of cash carelessly left lying around or in unlocked drawers. And there are plenty more houses where this one came from, he reasons. He foresees a new career in larceny, appropriate payback, perhaps, for the cruel and unusual treatment fate has heaped upon him. The plot is starting to tick loudly…
