The best way to enjoy Fantasmas is by knowing as little about it beforehand as possible. Fortunately it’s well nigh impossible to sumarise so nothing you’ll read here will in any way spoil your experience of watching it.
Ostensibly, we’re in a dystopian future where everything we over 30 something’s had feared has apparently come to pass. Everything you do is done via your mobile and everyone leads lonely lives lived in conjunction with their robot friend come butler in existential isolation.
This is the vista that former Saturday Night Live performer Julio Torres presents us with as we follow what seems to be a video diary of what has become his life.
He’s an out of work actor slash etc with a personal manager who is actually just role playing as his manager, but is it doing it so convincingly that she seems to believe that she really is his manager, and she spends her days trying to convince him to shell his soul so that he can finally afford to pay the rent.
But the key to life in this world is your Proof of Existence stamp, and he’s resolutely determined not to cave in to the man and get one, so that he can partake in all of the activities that are expected of you here.
It’s both a celebration of and a pastiche of a Gen Z world times a hundred that’s only loosely connected by this narrative, and is really just a succession of brilliantly realised skits performed by a handful of celebrity actors, who are all clearly in on the joke, including Steve Buscemi, Amy Sedaris, Paul Dano, Emma Stone (who also produces, again, as she did on The Curse, making her as impressive a producer as she is an actress) and Natasha Lyonne.
This is the most refreshingly original and consistently dazzling show on television, and feels like the brighter and slightly lighter companion piece to Apple’s Severance. But looks can be deceiving. Fantasmas is a close as you’re going to get to a show that’s genuinely Beckettian. Enjoy.
Watch the trailer for Fantasmas here:
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