Review: Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie and Emma Stone's The Curse

If there's anyone who deserves to be cursed, it's the Siegels. Newly-married couple Asher and Whitney are attempting to "ethically gentrify" the struggling town of Española outside Santa Fe in New Mexico, launch and host a trauma porn-heavy house-flipping series called "Flipanthropy" with the help of scum-of-the-earth producer Dougie Schecter and get pregnant when we meet them in The Curse. Asher is the palpably angry, off-putting-for-reasons-that-aren't-immediately-obvious man who has a micropenis, an accompanying inferiority complex, and who's neither "funny" nor "hot", but just kind of "there". The fact they're achingly aware of their privilege and position and the impact even supposedly "ethical" gentrification has on the most vulnerable people, yet ultimately devote their lives to perpetuating the cycle, is also the stuff of horror. Their story predominantly takes place in light-filled spaces, and yet it's incongruously scored by Oneohtrix Point Never's signature jarring synth-heavy arrangements and John Medeski's dark jazz brilliance.