Is it okay to include episode six of “The Bear” as one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year?
Sure, it technically counts as TV, but the standalone episode, titled “Fishes”, is 67 minutes, and better than 99% of the stuff Hollywood has released this year. Even if you haven’t seen a single episode of “The Bear,” this episode will hit you hard.
Although Chef Carmy is the main character in “The Bear,” he’s in the background here, recalling a traumatic Christmas dinner being cooked up by his mother Donna Berzatto (a never-better Jamie Lee Curtis) who’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. No American actress this year has come close to Curtis’ lightning rod work here.
The episode is set five years before “The Bear” is set to open. Carmy is back from Copenhagen culinary school and just wants to spend some sane Christmas time with his family and friends. Tough luck, kid.
Camry’s sister, Natalie (Abby Elliott), expresses concerns about their mother’s wellbeing, but every time she tries to help mama, the matriarch blows a fuse. She’s on the edge, relentlessly drinking as she prepares a meal based on the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
Meanwhile, brother Richie's pregnant wife, Tiffany, feels nauseous, as she’s pregnant and her husband is jobless, just as Richie asks uncle Cicero for a job. This all happens as Michael (Jon Bernthal), high as a kite on cocaine, starts hating on his Uncle Lee (Bob Odenkirk) and decides to throw a fork at him during dinner.
This flashback episode is brilliant chaos. It never lets up in intensity. The number of guest stars, all talented actors, who signed on for just this episode is highly impressive: Jon Bernthal, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gillian Jacobs, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, John Mulaney.
“The Bear” is a great show, and it did show hints of cinematic aspirations during its first season — that brilliant 20 minute one-take comes to mind — but “Fishes” ups the ante in ways I never imagined. Think Trey Edward Shults’ “Krisha” but in a more confined space.
Curtis is incredible infusing Donna’s fragility and alcoholism, with faked optimism and ticking time bomb allure. Meanwhile, it also gives us a good idea of why Bernthal’s Michael would eventually take his own life — his drug-induced hatred for Uncle Lee, who calls him “nothing” and “a loser,” turns into the most tense scene you’ll watch this year.
It all amounts to one of the most uncomfortable watches I’ve had in recent years. There’s a realism to the whole thing that cuts through you. It’s a masterclass on generational trauma and mental illness and plays like a 67 minute horror movie.
In "Last Meals," Mikkelsen stars as Walter Karat, a disgraced former White House chef now preparing final meals for death row inmates at a maximum security prison.