‘Nobody Wants This’ is pretty much the banter-filled modern rom-com you want
Yeah, no, your title is wrong!
Nobody Wants This, you say? Well, I assure you, Netflix’s newest series starring Kristen Bell as an agnostic podcast host and Adam Brody as an unorthodox rabbi, with its crackling chemistry, bantering meet-cute, and modern dating woes is pretty darn close to what we want from our rom-com fix.
The outspoken Joanne and the charming “Torah bad-boy vibe” rabbi Noah meet the old-fashioned way, which, to me and others in my generation facing dating app fatigue, is a retrofuturistic dream. It’s a mutual friend’s dinner party, where the two hit it off instantly in one of my favourite meet-cutes in a long time. And what makes this hot is again something that’s lacking a lot in modern dating—the banter. It’s witty, with sparks flying everywhere but not because these two people are up too close or making sexy eyes at each other. It’s the cheeky conversation, the riffing off and roasting each other that is written so organically, the jokes about Noah being Jewish and a rabbi and Joanne being a “shiksa” (a gentile or non-Jew) that amp up every scene between these two, from their first to their last.
If you haven’t guessed until now, Joanne and Noah start a relationship that nobody, including them, thinks is going to work. From her podcast with her sister about dating, sex, and relationships, we know that Joanne has a knack for going out with men that are totally wrong for her (OMG, she’s just like me!). As for Noah, who is about to be promoted to head rabbi at his temple, and who has freshly broken up from a relationship with the perfect Jewish girl, Rebecca, Joanne is the polar opposite of who he should be with. Everyone from his controlling mother, Bina (an effective Tovah Feldshuh), to his sister-in-law Esther (a great Jackie Tohn) who is besties with Noah’s ex, are against it, except for his brother Sasha, who is low-key supportive, and his father Ilan (Paul Ben-Victor), who looks like he just wants his son to be happy.
Nobody Wants This (which is also the name of the sisters’ podcast) then has Joanne and Noah navigate the complications of modern dating and interfaith coupling, while juggling their respective careers and the subtle sabotaging of their mostly well-meaning friends and family. The series leans as much into the tropes that come with this particular territory as it subverts them. You’ve got the tough-to-win-over sisters, the overbearing mother, the ex who is still in the picture to cause that typical miscommunication trope, the mutual friend (an underutilised Sherry Cola as Ashley) who is callously sidelined.
But there’s also the rabbi and his sex-positive girlfriend walking into a sex toy store that leads to a hilarious situation at Noah’s work. And Morgan was right; Joanne discovering “The Ick” in realtime when Noah turns into a whole different person to impress her parents is a modern dating concept that is so common yet hard to explain and makes for a great podcast episode! Clichés exist for a reason, and if you can make them work, there’s nothing like it.
I did like the freshness that the religion angle brought into this story. (And hey, I am from India, where religion is a strong factor keep people from being together, so I get it!) I will leave the nuanced critique of how Judaism is portrayed in Nobody Wants This to those more qualified to do it. For me, I enjoyed the challenges that this new territory posed for a rom-com couple. The episode where Noah brings Joanne to Jewish camp made for an interesting setting. The validation from a bunch of teenage girls makes Joanne speak up about something she isn’t okay with in her relationship was quite the reflection of how the younger generation holds up a mirror to some of the more problematic things that we’ve been okay with.
As someone who feels a lot like Joanne when it comes to religion (skeptical) and relationships, Noah is incredibly interesting as a man because he is so secure in his faith and his masculinity that he doesn’t feel the need to impose his views on someone else. And that makes it convincing when Joanne considers converting to Judaism. The scene where he wants to share his faith with her through the Havdalah ritual is sweet! Plus, it doesn’t help that Brody has his charm full turned out, and his Noah can have you kicking your legs in the air and giggling when he is being funny and the best boyfriend ever.
If you were a Veronica Mars and Seth Cohen from The OC fan growing up, watching Kristen Bell and Adam Brody’s Joanne and Noah come together is like watching your teen crushes age really well. Bell’s Joanne, especially, is someone a lot of women swimming in the modern dating pool will relate too, and she is doing something at least I have several times claimed I’m going to do someday—turn entertaining dating anecdotes into a lucrative business, like a book, or as is the rage right now, a podcast. She has the perfect partner for doing this too, her sister, Morgan, who is as spontaneous with her own dating life as she is cautious about her sister’s.
The series borrows from the experiences of writer and showrunner Erin Foster, who not only has a podcast with her sister and executive producer, Sara Foster (with whom she was also co-creative head at the dating app Bumble) but also fell in love with a Jewish guy and converted to Judaism to marry him. When you watch the two sisters talk about how Erin met her husband on an episode of Lily Singh’s late night show from four years ago, you realise just how perfectly they’ve captured that bantering sibling dynamic and aptly made it their podcast’s USP in writing the characters of Joanna and Morgan, further elevated by Kristen Bell and Justine Lupe.
The latter, especially, makes a character that would otherwise be seen as superficial and unlikeable seem like someone you want to actually be in a girl gang with. The scene where Morgan helps Joanne get chummy with his sister-in-law and her friends at Noah’s basketball match is a lot of fun, and exactly what I am talking about! The sisters’ dynamic also made me wish for more of their podcast, which becomes increasingly “boring” as Joanne finds love with Noah. It’s such a typical impediment in TV shows where your favourite ship’s yearning makes them work, but the moment they get together and are in a loving relationship, their arcs get boring! Can the sisters discuss this in their next episode, please?!
Mind you, it’s not just chemistry between its lead couple that this series thrives on. It’s just as carried by the chemistry between the two leads and their siblings. Timothy Simons as Sasha has effortlessly comedic timing and I LOVED his easy relationship with Noah, his domineering wife, Esther, his daughter, and that scene with his father where he wants a promotion! But it’s his awkward friendship with Morgan that really surprised me, because of how it flirted with the clichés but ended up subverting the trope (at least for this season).
Nobody Wants This gets a lot about modern dating woes right, and fumbles at the most expected of places. I was a tad disappointed because it needed to be more steamy and sexy, like in a ‘Darcy showing Bridget Jones how good guys do kiss like that’ way. But also, I wanted there to be more sex, and discussions about Joanne and Noah’s sex life on the podcast beyond the religion jokes.
The religion angle is clearly what sets Nobody Wants This apart from others, and that’s where it perhaps needs to iron out its kinks most. It’s not until the last episode when you realise that you, much like Noah and Joanne, got so wrapped up in the cliché teething problems of a new couple that you forgot about the big one. And that is, how do you solve the unsolvable overarching dilemma of these two diametrically opposite people getting together without giving up something important to them? Joanne will have to convert and even give up her podcast. Or Noah will have to give up being a head rabbi.
Something’s, or rather someone’s gotta give, right? And despite rooting for them to be endgame throughout the series, I was mentally prepared for Joanne and Noah to not have the fairytale ending because we’re doing great being realistic so far. Modern problems require modern solutions, and that last episode is poised to give us just that in its last few moments, when it unexpectedly and frustratingly… ends, which left me a bit unsatisfied. You’ve been warned. As in modern dating, do not expect closure.
This could mean a second season is forthcoming, and I am absolutely seated for it, as long as Nobody Wants This keeps giving us what we want, along with working on what we need. The 10-episode series is currently streaming on Netflix.
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