Your Friends and Neighbours: Jon Hamm stars in 'frothily fun' black comedy
Crime caper about a hedge fund manager who resorts to burgling his 'obnoxious' neighbours after losing his job

"Mad Men"'s Jon Hamm goes "from Don Draper to crime caper" in this "frothily fun" black comedy from Apple TV+, said Michael Hogan in The Guardian.
The actor brings his "slippery good looks" to the role of Andrew "Coop" Cooper, a divorced hedge fund CEO who has recently lost his job for workplace impropriety. With alimony payments to meet, he's desperate to maintain his "megabucks Ivy Leaguer lifestyle", and to keep his "spoilt" family in the style to which they've become accustomed. So he resorts to robbing his rich neighbours in upstate New York, only to discover that "what happens behind those white picket fences is even murkier than he imagined". The likeable Coop is essentially "Robin Hood in a Ralph Lauren cap", who retains our sympathy even as he pilfers luxury goods from the drawers of his "minted and smugly punchable" victims. The question is: for how long can he get away with it?
The show is in no hurry to let us know, said Dan Einav in the Financial Times. Subplots abound, and while those featuring Coop's "rueful" ex-wife Mel (Amanda Peet) enrich the narrative, others are "unnecessary" and sometimes turn a "promising" premise into a "lethargic" slog.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It's all a little formulaic, repeating "familiar tropes" about obnoxious rich people from shows such as "Big Little Lies" and "The White Lotus", said Benji Wilson in The Telegraph. Still, Hamm is "superb" as Coop, and it's all deftly scripted. It may not be "entirely original", but "Your Friends and Neighbors" is "more than sharp enough to get away with it".
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Lou Berney’s 6 favorite books with powerful storytelling
Feature The award-winning author recommends works by Dorothy B. Hughes, James McBride, and more
-
Robert Redford: the Hollywood icon who founded the Sundance Film Festival
Feature Redford’s most lasting influence may have been as the man who ‘invigorated American independent cinema’ through Sundance
-
Book reviews: ‘All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation’ and ‘Mother Mary Come to Me’
Feature Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘balls to the wall’ memoir and Arundhati Roy’s terrifying mother
-
6 rustic homes on ranches
Feature Featuring copper kitchen counters in Colorado and a 380-acre property in California
-
Steve: a ‘gripping’ drama starring Cillian Murphy
The Week Recommends Murphy plays the frazzled headmaster of a boarding school for ‘delinquent’ boys in this bold Indie film
-
The Lady from the Sea: a ‘thrillingly contemporary’ Ibsen adaptation
The Week Recommends ‘Luminous’ cast dazzle in Simon Stone’s ‘hugely enjoyable’ production
-
Black Rabbit: slick crime thriller set in a high-end New York restaurant
The Week Recommends Two Manhattan brothers resort to ‘ever-more high-stakes’ schemes to tackle ‘huge’ gambling debts in the ‘glossy’ series
-
One Battle After Another: a ‘terrifically entertaining’ watch
The Week Recommends Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest release is a ‘high-octane action thriller’ and a ‘surefire Oscar frontrunner’