Sam Esmail: “Friends is collective imagination, we confuse reality with fantasy”
The cult sitcom plays a crucial role in The World After Us, on Netflix. The creator and director explains to us what is hidden behind this pop theme and why the resurgence of the series is also something worrying.
Even 20 years after its conclusion, Friends remains a safe haven. The favorite series of millions of people around the world and millions of Netflix subscribers, who watch episodes over and over on the platform… Precisely, Netflix today welcomes into its catalog The World after us, an apocalyptic film where Friends holds a surprisingly prominent place. Spoiler alert!
In the family of Julia Robertslittle Rose (played by Farrah Mackenzie) discover the series. She’s just around ten years old and she’s meeting the Central Perk gang for the first time. She devours their stories on her tablet, with a voracity that is undermined, when the world collapses, the Internet is cut and it is now impossible to see Friends online. Cruel because, Rose had arrived in the end! And the impossible viewing of the last episode of Friends thus becomes the rather crazy red thread of the film Sam Esmail. The director explains for Première:
“We all cling to something in times of crisis. Everyone has their own thing to overcome chaos. And in television storytelling, we find something to forget this chaos, something to escape. But it’s also a form of hope, a way to exorcise the crisis and the darkness.”
Friends as an antidote to dark thoughts, it was obvious. But what stands out is the generational transmission. “In our story, Rose is the youngest character. She represents the new generation. And it is she who sounds the alarm, who tries to alert the adults, who sees the consequences for her future before them. But the adults continue to ignore her. So she finds comfort in Friends.”
But why Friends ? Why not Seinfeld Or The Simpsons or another euphoric cult series? Sam Esmail explains to us that the New York sitcom has something “very international iconic. It speaks to everyone and the series is experiencing such a resurgence today, on platforms, that it has become a trans-generational work, a sort of universal tale about love, about hope, about relationships to others.”
Even more, the filmmaker saw in the credits of Friendsthe famous “I’ll be there for You”, an echo of the themes of World after uswho speak of human solidarity, when everything is collapsing around: “It seemed perfectly suited to our film. That’s the whole meaning behind the film. Will you be there for the others?
That being said, Sam Esmail don’t just use Friends as a link between us and them. He also dissects the phenomenon behind the sitcom, its insane aura, 20 years later. A proper autopsy of a popular passion that is certainly excessive, which actually pushes one of its characters to sum up in a scathing manner halfway through: “Friends takes us back to a nostalgia that never existed ” A reply full of meaning according to Esmail:
“I believe that there is something dangerous in this escape route that we seek with series like Friends“, explains the creator of Egyptian origin. “I grew up in a Muslim family in New Jersey and I watched lots of American sitcoms at the same time, with pretty Christmas trees and grilled bacon and all these things that I didn’t get at home. I envied that. It seemed so happy and sunny on the small screen that I was jealous not to have that. I thought that was how other American families in my town lived. And then as I grew up, I realized that this was not a reality at all. That it was a kind of fantasy for them too. What’s dangerous is when people watch TV and they remember the good old days, a past era that no longer exists. Whether it was in front of Happy Days at one point or in front of Friends today. Except that we are totally in the collective imagination. We confuse reality with fantasy.”
This does not mean that Sam Esmail hated Friends. “I think everyone loves Friends,” replies the director. “It’s a global phenomenon. And in a way, I am part of the world…”
However, he had not really perceived the meta paradox of his film: if Rose saw the entire Friendsshe also saw Julia Roberts (who plays his mother) appear in two episodes! “That’s absolutely true. But hey, Amanda Sanford is the heroine of the film and Julia Roberts is the actress who stars in Friends. They’re two different people !”
The World After Us, by Sam Esmail, to watch on Netflix since December 8, 2023.
