There’s a subgenre of entertainment titled “the hangout film.” It was coined by Quentin Tarantino, and, in a New Yorker profile about Tarantino, writer Larissa MacFarquhar defined it as a movie where the “primary attraction is the characters,” and that it is something “you watch over and over again, just to spend time with them.” Hangout films feature people that remind us of our friends or how our friends would act if they were played by cool actors.
This subgenre also applies to television. Such “hangout sitcoms” include “Cheers,” “Friends” and “How I Met Your Mother.” They feature the type of people you’d like to find in a coffee shop or a bar at the end of a long day who’d tell you everything is going to be all right.
“Difficult People” is not that type of sitcom. Far from it. Its leads, Billy and Julie, are the type of people who would make you groan if they sat on the bus next to you.
The poster for “Difficult People” features Billy and Julie taking a selfie at a funeral. They curse when there are children nearby at a matinee of “Annie.” In this week’s episode, “Pledge Week,” Julie accurately notes that making mean jokes about celebrities “is the only thing we do that comes more naturally than breathing air.”
Yet, as many recent television dramas have proved — such as “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones” — characters do not have to be likable to be entertaining. Billy and Julie, for all of their faults, are very funny people.
“Pledge Week,” the best episode of the series so far, features some of Billy and Julie’s best rants. There was one conversation about “participators” — audience members who excessively participate in shows — that was so sharp and specific in its humor that it could have been at home in an episode of “Seinfeld” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Billy and Julie are played respectively by Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner. They are hilarious and make these awful human beings so much fun to watch that you gradually forget how terrible they are.
“Pledge Week” has some good cameos by prominent members of show business who knock Billy and Julie down a peg or two. Celebrated songwriter Marc Shaiman shows a competency for acting, while Martin Short proves it is impossible to hate him even when he calmly hurls vicious insults at Billy.
The supporting cast is great. James Urbaniak shines as Arthur, Julie’s boyfriend and a much-needed straight man. And, Andrea Martin is funny as Julie’s mom.
“Difficult People” is aptly named, but it is hilarious and gets better and better each week. I’m excited to see where Klausner, who created the series, and her writers take these characters next.
