Hello tomorrow! is the story of people who believe that telling enough lies will eventually make those lies—and their dreams—come true. No amount of deception, alas, can turn this AppleTV+ series into a winner. Waste of a glamorous slick performance by star Billy Crudup, it’s a nostalgic futuristic affair built from unoriginal scrap and hollowed out beneath its shiny surface.
Created by Amit Bhalia and Lucas Jansen, Hello tomorrow! (released February 17) is set in the alternate 1950s, brimming with the latest and greatest tech gadgets. Large flying cars with chrome fenders glide through suburban streets, past self-driving delivery trucks and robot dogs. Robots are ubiquitous, handling every service job society requires, from lawn care and bar care to acting as office workers and policemen.
Its the jets to life that is bright, glittery, smooth, and includes rocket ships that promise to send humans to the moon — a destination that Jack Billings (Crudup) considers the prime place to achieve happiness, thanks to one of his luxurious Brightside property sharing time.
Hello tomorrow! are basking in slick sci-fi embellishments, but unfortunately, they turn out to be just decorations for a story that could — with almost no meaningful alteration — be set in any time and place. Jack is a salesman touting the promise of a better tomorrow, and the fact that his product is the moon and not Boca Raton or the Amalfi Coast is simply a superficial detail. .
Shown by Crudup with his performance grin and seriousness, Jack is a sort of old charlatan, and although he doesn’t show it right away, it’s impossible not to immediately deduce that he’s playing. tricking everyone, including their colleagues, themselves are all — in their own particular ways — scammers desperate to hit the jackpot through dishonesty.
Shirley (Haneefah Wood) is Jack’s right-hand man who runs his Brightside operation and is currently having an affair with co-worker Eddie (Hank Azaria), a skilled gambler always indebted to a violent bookie (W. Earl Brown). Herb (Dewshane Williams) is the funniest member of the team, a goofy optimist who is capable of putting on a cheerful face even in the most difficult situations.
Together, they are a team dedicated to accomplishing Jack’s goal of selling as many time-sharing rentals as possible to the residents of their newest stop, Vistaville, where they’ve established a temporarily resides in a hotel close to Jack’s mother, Barbara (Jacki Weaver), who lives in a nursing home and condemns Jack for always running away.
As if these people haven’t been deceiving themselves, each other, and their customers enough, Hello tomorrow! also focuses on Jack’s decision—after a minor scolding from his mother—to try to reconnect with his son Joey (Nicholas Podany), whom he abandoned 18 years ago.
Jack’s ex-wife was hospitalized due to a seemingly comical accident involving an automated delivery vehicle, and when Joey attended one of Brightside’s seminars, he was convinced of the idea. start over on the moon. However, Jack offers him a better opportunity: a job at Brightside, apprentice salesman. Joey gritted his teeth, not realizing that Jack was actually his absentee father—a point Jack himself kept a secret, claiming it was the best way to mend their fractured relationship.
This is a silly trick, but more than that, it is a trick that has been seen thousands of times before and it plays out the same way as it did in the past. Jack and Joey initially develop a close bond between mentor and mentee, only to have their closeness threatened by revelations about Jack’s paternity. Add to the hackneyed madness of Hello tomorrow! is the “bombshell” that Brightside is an almost Ponzi scheme; Jack owns no moon properties, but he hopes that by selling enough time shares he will have enough money to build them, thereby making his scam a reality!
This ploy entails ripping off hoaxes as well as blinding his accomplices (they don’t know Jack is a fraud). Furthermore, it is complicated by the intervention of Lester Costopolous (Matthew Maher), a management employee who is increasingly suspicious of Jack’s business practices, and whose hallmark is to command around the briefcase. He floats like a dog and mispronounces words (“sorry;” “unbelievable;” “edivence”) in what is believed to be a funny influence.
Herb’s sly wife Betty (Susan Heyward), ruthless local heiress Elle (Dagmara Domińczyk), and shunned housewife Myrtle (Alison Pill) all play supporting roles in the film. Hello tomorrow!, facilitating and/or hindering Jack’s grand plans. Too bad they’re all nasty one-sided characters, the same can be said of Azaria’s gambling booze and Williams’ optimistic goofiness.
Wood might get the end of the shortest stick as Shirley, who is supposed to be tough and pragmatic but is still forced to do a bunch of ignorant and/or unwise things because of conspiracies that claim asked her to do so. That’s animation on the scale of the entire series, albeit minus the humour, as the show’s writing fails to find a single funny story, clever plot, or novel direction.
Father and son, truth and lie, yadda yadda yadda. Hello tomorrow! is a worn old rehash retrofitted with Forbidden Planet-decoration proves unimportant and ultimately less prominent as the program navigates its familiar conflicts.
Only Crudup seems to be fully invested in these proceedings, presenting Jack with his sincere belief that he can fulfill all his wishes and make everything all right with a single trick. homerun, even as his eyes occasionally flashed with fatigue, guilt, and a gnawing fear that he really was a no-brainer. However, the actor’s commitment wasn’t enough to make Jack resonate as unique; on the contrary, sad for him own Father’s problem, Crudup’s protagonist is a giant cliché within a story full of smaller stories.
With each episode being only half an hour long, Hello tomorrow! at least move at a fast speed. There isn’t a single hilarious or touching moment to be found in its first ten seasons, however, praising the series for coming to an end (cliffhanger-y) within a reasonable timeframe. , admittedly, most commendable. “Every crisis is an open door,” declares Betty, and hopes that will happen here, with the rapid fall allowing these talented performers to move on to future projects. brighter future.
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