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      As Hollywood Strikes Roll On, Viewers Catch Up With a TV Glut

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      After years of being inundated with new shows, some are using a pause in production to finally watch all the stuff they missed when it came out.With Hollywood’s labor disputes grinding on, and virtually all production stopped, anxiety began creeping into Zain Habboo’s house in Chevy Chase, Md.She and her husband had recently finished the latest season of HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones,” but now they were worried that new episodes of favorite shows like “The Handmaid’s Tale” would be significantly delayed.What on earth were they going to watch?Ms. Habboo, 49, quickly realized she had options. She might revisit classics like “30 Rock” and “Arrested Development” with her 17-year-old son. She could join him in watching a show he’s bingeing, like all 62 episodes of “Breaking Bad.” She has also never seen any of the “Mission Impossible” movies, and she has barely made a dent in the Oscar-nominated films from the past four or five years.For many viewers, the writers’ and actors’ strikes in Hollywood will soon be felt in the form of altered film release schedules and prime-time lineups littered with game shows, reality TV and reruns.At the same time, the pause in new scripted material provides a moment for many viewers to catch up after the breakneck pace of the so-called Peak TV era, when dozens of shows were premiering each month.“I have a Netflix queue that is so deep and so long, it would take me months or a year or two to go through it all,” said Dan Leonhardt, a 44-year-old engineer who lives in Copenhagen. “And that’s just Netflix! I also have a Max subscription.”Dan Leonhardt subscribes to two streaming services. “I have a Netflix queue that is so deep and so long, it would take me months or a year or two to go through it all,” he said.Mathias Eis for The New York TimesThe slowdown will represent a major shift from recent years, when viewers were inundated with a fire hose of content — a record 599 new television scripted premieres last year.On almost a daily basis, audiences found themselves clicking past new shows on their TVs, often ones they had never heard of, trying to figure out from a one-sentence description whether a series like “Altered Carbon” on Netflix or “The Path” on Hulu was worth their time.For streaming services, the strategy was straightforward: The more shows they produced, the more chances they had to attract subscribers. The number of people who watched any one show wasn’t as important as the number of people who paid for the service.So the promise of a constant flow of new stuff became a hallmark of the streaming era. One of the outstanding questions as the labor stalemate goes on has been whether viewers would start to cancel subscriptions to streaming services en masse when fewer new shows and movies became available.For many, though, a slower output is just fine, giving them time to pick their way through streaming libraries, one missed TV series and movie at a time.Emily Nidetz, a 41-year-old in Madison, Wis., said she was relieved that production for reality series had not been affected and that there were still plenty of sports to watch. And though she is worried about a slowdown in prestige shows, she said she could always stop by a Facebook community page for The Ringer’s podcast “The Watch” to get some ideas.“If you go to the Facebook page and write, ‘Hey, I really loved “The Bear,” tell me what to watch,’ there will be like 400 replies,” she said.Tasha Quinn said she planned to take her time to enjoy shows without feeling pressure to keep up with the latest series.Obinna Onyeka for The New York TimesTasha Quinn, a 36-year-old therapist from Chicago, said there was a moment last year when she was so overwhelmed by the conveyor belt of new series that she finally had to take a break. HBO’s “House of the Dragon” was the breaking point.“I made it through two episodes, and didn’t finish it,” she said. “There was too much hype, and there were a lot of other things coming out at the same time. I was like, nope, I’m too overwhelmed, I’m too overstimulated, I’ll just go back to my comfort shows. I’m going to go watch ‘The Office.’”Ms. Quinn said that the labor disputes had worried her briefly because new episodes of the dystopian workplace drama “Severance” on AppleTV+ would be delayed — but that she then quickly thought of the upside.“I can take my time without everyone talking about what’s coming next,” she said, adding that she’s currently wrapping up “Succession.”The length of the labor disputes will determine the length of the disruption. Actors have been on strike since July 14. Writers have been walking picket lines for more than 100 days. Formal talks between the writers and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, were held on Friday for the first time since early May. No talks involving the actors are scheduled.Third-party researchers believe that most of the streaming services should be well insulated if the strikes last another month or two — though that risk rises the longer production is shut down. The amount of content in their streaming libraries was one reason the studios initially said they could weather the strikes, at least in the short term, a pointed message to writers and actors currently going without paychecks. (For instance, “Suits,” a USA Network show that went off the air in 2019, has recently surged in popularity on Netflix.)Leaders of the Writers Guild of America, the union that represents thousands of striking screenwriters, recently said it was “disinformation” that the strike would have “no impact because streaming services have libraries and some product in the pipeline.”“It is not a viable business strategy for these companies to shut down their business for three months — and counting — no matter how much they try and pretend it is,” they said in a note to members.Ms. Habboo said she sympathized with the striking writers and actors, but had no plans to cancel her streaming subscriptions.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesMany viewers say they support the striking writers and actors. Ms. Habboo said she believed they were not being fairly compensated, and “that is a huge bummer.”Still, when asked if she would cut any of her streaming subscriptions, she was emphatic. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Canceling is never an option.”Mel Russo, a 56-year-old yoga teacher who lives in Brooklyn, said the Max service alone “could keep you busy for the next 10 years, to be honest.”“I think it’s disgusting what’s going on,” she added. “But I am not in dire straits about it as a watcher and as a lover of entertainment.”The streaming services seem keen to capitalize. Last month, Netflix rolled out a new banner, “10 Years of Netflix Series,” which presents viewers with dozens of older titles from its library.Eric Martinez, a 25-year-old video producer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, had been a big fan of the HBO series “Euphoria.” But the earliest that show will return for its third season is now 2025, so he went looking for an alternative.On his Amazon Prime page, Mr. Martinez had been seeing a tile for the show “The Boys” for some time. The superhero series was one he thought he had no interest in. But with time on his hands, he finally took the plunge. “I’m enjoying it, and I’m glad I started it,” he said.Not all the viewers need a new old show to watch.Brenda Stewart, a 71-year-old Nebraskan, said she and her husband often fired up their Roku and watched reruns of older series including “CSI” and “Murder, She Wrote.” She’s also a big fan of rewatching movies like “The Lion King” and other Disney classics.Ms. Stewart, who has six grandchildren, said it was not uncommon to have “Bluey” episodes playing again and again in her house when the children were over. And, sometimes, it’s not exclusively for the little ones.“It’s a cartoon series for kids, but I’m not going to lie — it’s also for adults,” she said, laughing. “There’s stuff in there that just makes me chuckle.” More

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      Taylor Kitsch Is No Longer a Leading Man. He’s OK With That.

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      There are easier ways.If you are, let’s say, a rangy 5-feet-11-inches, with an athlete’s build, burnished skin and a heedless, sad-eyed charisma that makes audiences lean in so far they fall over, Hollywood offers smoother paths. If you look, just a little, like a god who overslept, then you don’t have to learn Shoshone or master “My Sharona” or lose weight or gain weight or have panic attacks. And if you have spent years helping a close family member survive an opioid addiction, you don’t have to take a role that asks you to portray a similar addiction, to immerse yourself in that pain and terror and need.But Taylor Kitsch does.In “Painkiller,” a six-episode series arriving on Netflix on Aug. 10, Kitsch plays Glen Kryger, the owner of a North Carolina auto repair shop. After Glen is prescribed OxyContin for a workplace injury, he descends into addiction. Slowly, at first, then in free fall.Kitsch wanted the role. It reunited him with his frequent collaborator, the producer and director Peter Berg. It felt meaningful. And Glen is the kind of part that has defined the latter half of Kitsch’s career, characters who look at first like leading men but slip from that groove because they’re too wounded, too vulnerable, too compromised. Still, he couldn’t read through even the first script without breaking down.“I’m like, Wait, there’s so much still that’s very raw,” he recalled thinking. “Then I was like, OK”Kitsch, 42, was speaking on a morning in late June, on the patio of a house in the mountains above Santa Fe, N.M. Pinyon pines squatted in the red dirt just beyond the patio’s edge. Hummingbirds whirred overhead. A heavy bag, off its chain, slumped in a corner. Kitsch had been here for months, shooting another Netflix show with Berg, “American Primeval,” a series set on the American frontier in the 1850s, due out next year. The 20 pounds he had lost for that role left him skinny in his skinny jeans, sun-roughened and bearded. Moccasins hid a broken toe, mostly healed. (This interview and others were completed before the SAG-AFTRA strike.)In “Painkiller,” Kitsch’s character runs an auto repair shop with his wife (Carolina Bartczak) until an OxyContin addiction upends his life.Keri Anderson/NetflixOffscreen, Kitsch’s persona is lighter, looser, more inclined to gesture and joke. But there’s a lonesomeness at the core of him that makes women want to save him and men want to buy him a beer. I am a mother of young children and the temptation to offer him a snack was sometimes overwhelming.The shoot was almost over (though the strike would halt it a week from completion), and Kitsch’s father, who had been absent for most of his life, had just died. He seemed stranded somewhere between character and self, more inclined to use the first-person when he talked about a role than when he spoke more personally. “You’re hungry,” he would say. “You’re about to melt down.”Kitsch grew up in British Columbia, mostly with his mother and older brothers. Later, two half sisters were born. Injuries ended a hockey career before it really began, and after a brief and mostly unsuccessful stint as a model, he began auditioning for film roles. In school, he had always liked acting, liked the attention it brought. (“I was the funny guy at school at all costs,” he said.) And he had done some background work as a teenager. He had no formal training, but his looks were enough to land him a few small roles.Then he auditioned for “Friday Night Lights,” the NBC series set in the world of Texas high school football, which premiered in 2006. Other young men had been shortlisted to play Tim Riggins, the team’s troubled fullback. But in a Hail Mary play, Kitsch’s manager drove him onto the NBC lot. Berg, who developed that series, remembers watching Kitsch step out of the car, the sunlight in his hair.“And I said, ‘Oh [expletive], this guy’s it,’” Berg recalled. Kitsch, he said, had a strength to him, an old-school stoicism, veined with vulnerability. “But what makes him special is that he contains these energies, he doesn’t lead with them,” Berg said. “He doesn’t work too hard.”Riggins, a cocky, fatherless athlete from a blue-collar family, mirrored Kitsch’s own background. Berg trusted him to write lines for the character, to suggest motives and moves. The show also gave him space to fail, to learn what would and wouldn’t work on camera. On set, Kitsch gravitated toward the older actors, taking their advice, studying their techniques.As the show wrapped its fifth and final season in 2011, Kitsch lined up back-to-back-to-back roles in two blockbusters (“John Carter,” “Battleship”) and a sexy thriller (“Savages”), a slate that announced his status as Hollywood’s next leading man. The films all underperformed. He chose smaller films after that and returned briefly to television, starring in the second season of the moody HBO procedural “True Detective.” Back then, in the mid 2010s, he couldn’t always get out of his own way. He sabotaged relationships, he said. He sabotaged himself.Kitsch was given leading-man parts after “Friday Night Lights,” but “I just wanted to be a character actor that buzzed into certain things and, hopefully, made you evoke something,” he said.Tag Christof for The New York TimesHollywood didn’t seem to know what to do with him at the time, and Kitsch, who moved first to Texas and then to Montana, didn’t know what to do with Hollywood either. He kept sliding out from under leading man parts. As a kid, he had wanted attention. Now, in his 30s, he found that he wanted to disappear.“Whatever it is that motivates other people — fame, money, celebrity, more followers, I don’t [expletive] know — it was never like that,” Kitsch said. “I just wanted to be a character actor that buzzed into certain things and, hopefully, made you evoke something.”In these years, he also found himself caring for one of his younger sisters, Shelby Kitsch-Best, who was struggling with addiction to opioids and other drugs. He took time off, coaxing her into detox and sober living facilities, taking her to the hospital when she relapsed.“He literally put his life on hold to help me,” Kitsch-Best, now seven years sober, said in a recent interview. “I don’t even know how to put it in words.”For his next major project, he signed on to play the cult leader David Koresh in “Waco,” a 2018 Paramount limited series. He lost weight, learned guitar, took voice lessons, practiced one of Koresh’s sermons “a thousand-plus” times, he said. Though he gave himself his first panic attack, a month ahead of filming, the preparation worked: Kitsch is unrecognizable in the role.I asked him if he could perhaps have done less. He didn’t think so. Because he has no training to fall back on, no technique, he feels the need to bring himself as close to a character — physically, psychically — as possible.“The only thing that eliminates self-doubt for me is prep,” he said. He never wants to look back and think that he could have done more.Betty Gilpin, who also stars in “American Primeval,” bet that Kitsch, who learned some Shoshone and worked with a medicine man to prepare for his role as a white man raised by a Native tribe, had done more research than anyone else on set. “The purpose of it seems to be so he can be lost in the work and to have freedom in the work,” she said in a recent interview.Kitsch asked his sister Shelby Kitsch-Best, a former addict, to help him accurately portray his character’s experiences.Keri Anderson/Netflix“Painkiller” — based on the Barry Meier book “Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic” and the Patrick Radden Keefe article “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain,” in The New Yorker — is the second prestige series, after “Dopesick,” to limn the opioid epidemic. This project demanded a particular kind of preparation, much of it emotional. Glen is a composite character, a stand-in for the many, many Americans who became addicted to OxyContin after their doctors prescribed it. He is there to illustrate that addiction doesn’t discriminate — it doesn’t care how good you are, how principled, how strong.“Taylor was the perfect guy to take us on that trip,” said Eric Newman, an executive producer of “Painkiller.” “If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone.”Kitsch knew this. It had happened to his sister. Years before, he had written her a letter, telling her that he wished he could take her pain from her. He couldn’t. But in playing Glen, he could honor it, at least. He asked her to accompany him on set, as an adviser, as long as she felt comfortable.“I was like: ‘Are you sure? You’re not going to relapse if you see me faking using Oxy,’” Kitsch recalled. “She was like, ‘I think I’m good.’”Glen, a hard worker and a family man, should be the hero of this story. Instead, he’s one of the victims. And Kitsch, who gained 25 pounds for the role (“this guy is a beer and sandwich kind of guy,” he said), forgoes vanity in scenes in which Glen spills urine on himself or struggles to lift a tire or overdoses in a pancake house. Kitsch understood Glen, up to a point. He knows what it is to be in pain — emotional, physical — and to want that pain to go away.But he asked Kitsch-Best to help him with the particulars, like how someone might look and feel if they were using or in withdrawal. “He really wanted very specific details about what’s going on in someone’s mind and how that would manifest in their body,” she said. “Those things are difficult to watch because it’s so real. But it’s good how real it is.”With Berg’s blessing, Kitsch-Best filmed a brief cameo as a nurse at a methadone clinic and helped to choreograph a detox scene. “She’d be like, ‘Go bigger, you’d be sweating more,’” Kitsch said. “Bringing her was incredibly cathartic and obviously full circle. I was the emotional mess, and she was just killing it.”Kitsch works less than he used to. “If I can’t be all in and really be in service of something and be scared and be uncomfortable, then I don’t want to do that,” he said.Tag Christof for The New York TimesWhen Berg first sent Kitsch the “Painkiller” script, he did so knowing his family history. And Berg could tell that the shoot was sometimes hard for him. “But that’s where the gold is, when you’ve got an actor who’s that emotionally connected to something,” Berg said. “I knew he wasn’t going to walk away or break down. It wasn’t going to beat him. He would take that emotion and funnel it into Glen. It was a really a beautiful thing to bear witness to.”Kitsch doesn’t break down much these days, and he enjoys his time outside of work, which wasn’t always a given. Between shoots, he hikes, he fly fishes, he tracks and photographs the wolves that live near his home. (Everyone I spoke to asked if he had told me about the wolves. Boy, had he.) “I’ve started to live a little more,” he said. He also bought 22 acres in Montana that he plans to make available as a sober retreat, with simple A-frame houses, maybe a sweat lodge.Kitsch works less than he used to. After taking time off to help his sister, he never returned at quite the same pace. “I pride myself on being picky, because it is so much energy and sacrifice,” he said. “If I can’t be all in and really be in service of something and be scared and be uncomfortable, then I don’t want to do that.”This isn’t necessarily the life that his early career promised or that his looks ordained, but it works for him. Toward the end of our conversation, I told him that when I first entered his name into a search bar, the first question Google suggested was, “What happened to Taylor Kitsch?”So what did happen? Kitsch gave me one of his unhurried smiles. “What happened?” he said. “I was doing character stuff.”Though he started out as a pretty boy, he has made himself into an actor, which has meant a narrower path and likely a more arduous one “The people that really know me, or that follow the career will understand it,” he added. “Because I’m not so famous.”He seemed to like that fine. More

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      ‘Heartstopper’ Season 2, Watched With L.G.B.T.Q. Teens

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      Three British 16-year-olds took an advance look at Season 2. There was popcorn, giggling and more than a little eye-rolling.This week, the British coming-of-age drama “Heartstopper” returned to laptop screens all over the world. Based on Alice Oseman’s webcomics, the Netflix series follows a romantic relationship between two high school students, Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor), whose friendship group includes a young trans woman, Elle (Yasmin Finney), and a lesbian couple, Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell).The first season of this fizzy, feel-good show amassed 24 million hours of views in its first week, according to Netflix, and received glowing reviews from critics. But does it really reflect reality for British L.G.B.T.Q. teenagers? “It’s probably my only comfort show,” said Sharan Sahota, 16, as she settled into an armchair on a recent afternoon to watch the first four episodes of the new season. In “Heartstopper,” Charlie is outed as gay in eighth grade; Sahota, who identifies as pansexual, was also outed at school around the same age.“It wasn’t a pleasant experience,” she said, adding that seeing a similar ordeal depicted in “Heartstopper” has helped her feel less alone. “If they can get through it, and they’re living happily, so can I,” she said.Sahota, Oscar Wittams-Nangle and Ari Przytulski, all 16, recently gathered in London for a “Heartstopper” watch party. The trio — who attend a weekly youth club run by the charity Mosaic L.G.B.T.+ Young Persons’ Trust — discussed the show’s relevance and accuracy, as well as its surprisingly chaste attitude to sex. There was popcorn, giggling and more than a little eye-rolling.The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity, and contains mild spoilers.In this season, we see Nick struggling to come out as bisexual multiple times. How relevant is coming out to your generation?ARI PRZYTULSKI I think it’s still definitely relevant. Many kids still feel like they have to come out, especially to parents. I came out to my mum twice, first I was gay, then I was like, actually I’m trans.OSCAR WITTAMS-NANGLE Coming out is definitely a pressure. But at least for me, it was always an external pressure that came from other people, rather than something I felt I needed to do for me.SHARAN SAHOTA When you’re outed, you’re just like, “I can’t do anything.” The closet is just glass after that. But when you change environments, you don’t have to come out.PRZYTULSKI I understand why they wrote Nick feeling like he needs to come out to everyone in order to actually be out. But I feel like it would be a better message to show that you don’t need to. You can just exist as an L.G.B.T. person, and just be in a relationship without having to tell everyone that you are this way.From left, Felix (Ash Self), Naomi (Bel Priestley) and Elle (Yasmin Finney) at an art school.Netflix/Samuel DoreWhat do you think “Heartstopper” is doing that other L.G.B.T. films and shows aren’t?PRZYTULSKI What I like about the show is that it doesn’t overdramatize for shock value, or just to play with your emotions. It’s about gay people, but it’s not tragic. A lot of queer films just show how sad it is. Especially in shows like “Euphoria”: It’s all about how horrible everyone is and how everything just goes badly. In “Heartstopper,” people fix stuff by talking.WITTAMS-NANGLE “Queer as Folk” was released in 1999 in Britain. I saw a few reviews draw comparisons to that. And it’s like, not really: It’s not that the reviewers didn’t understand it, but it was definitely a result of them not having this sort of show when they were growing up. There aren’t that many cultural references that they can draw on.What do you make of the lack of sex in the show?PRZYTULSKI A lot of other shows focus way more on sex when it’s not all about that: It’s also your affection toward people. That’s why so many straight people misunderstand us. It’s not about being proud of liking boys, or whoever you like, it’s about the experience of being gay in a heteronormative society.WITTAMS-NANGLE It’s good that “Heartstopper” moves away from sexuality being purely about sex. It does mean more than that to me. It’s an identity, it’s a community. I think there are some things that are sanitized, but I wouldn’t say it would be the portrayal of sexuality.Locke and Connor in Season 2 of “Heartstopper.”Netflix/Samuel DoreWhich aspects are sanitized, do you think?WITTAMS-NANGLE The Harry character is very sanitized. Most queerphobic bullies say things that are a lot worse. I’ve had worse.SAHOTA In real life there’s a whole group of them.WITTAMS-NANGLE Exactly.PRZYTULSKI Whether it’s people staring at you, or it’s people outright harassing you, it’s a constant struggle. I understand why you wouldn’t want to include that in the show, because it’s meant to be a happy show.WITTAMS-NANGLE Also, it definitely is not easy in this country to be able to get gender affirming care, especially at our age, because you need to either have money, or luck.We don’t see Elle’s transition on the show.WITTAMS-NANGLE If you can get past all the waiting lists, all the appointments go well, then maybe you’ll get it on the N.H.S. [Britain’s National Health Service]. But, otherwise, there’s no chance. I think that is a struggle that isn’t shown in any media.Does it matter that the two main characters are two cisgender white boys?PRZYTULSKI I think it does. That’s one of the things that makes it less relatable to me as a trans woman. With Nick and Charlie both being white cis boys, it’s more digestible. They’re the default, and then there’s one variable, that they’re gay, or bi.WITTAMS-NANGLE Personally, I’m fine with it not being perfect, because there is absolutely no way you can make the perfect show for something which is as varied and as individual as living life as a queer person.Do you think “Heartstopper” is aiming for realism, or is it depicting an aspirational world?SAHOTA I think it’s a mix.WITTAMS-NANGLE Aspiration is the word. A lot of people don’t have accepting parents, or don’t have an accepting peer group, don’t have friends they feel comfortable coming out to. I watch the show and I’m like, “I wish my school could’ve been like that.”PRZYTULSKI They’re kissing a lot. They really were shoving each other into the wall. They’re in the middle of school and practically making out!WITTAMS-NANGLE It was quite funny, the changing room scene where they’re like, “We shouldn’t be kissing at school. We need to be discreet.” And they’re talking really loudly. Not doing very well on the discreet thing. More

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      Stream These 10 Movies Before They Leave Netflix in August

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      We’ve rounded up the best of what’s leaving this month, which includes a lot of favorites, among them two Oscar winners. Catch them while you can.Two recent (and worthy) Oscar winners lead the list of titles exiting Netflix in the United States this month, alongside two horror favorites, two action extravaganzas and one of the most beloved romantic comedies of its time. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘Les Misérables’ (Aug. 15)Anne Hathaway won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her turn in this adaptation of the musical theater sensation, itself adapted from the novel by Victor Hugo. The director, Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”), shot live performances of the song on set — most movie musicals feature actors lip-syncing to studio recordings — and the unconventional technique made for some remarkably raw and vulnerable performances, especially in the case of Hathaway’s show stopper “I Dreamed a Dream.” Some of Hooper’s other risks don’t pay off as handsomely (casting Russell Crowe in a role requiring a strong singer was … a choice), but this one is worth streaming for Hathaway’s electric work alone.Stream it here.‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ (Aug. 31)Barry Jenkins followed up the triumph of “Moonlight” with this emotionally resonant adaptation of the novel by James Baldwin. Preserving the novel’s original setting, Jenkins beautifully recreates the Harlem of the 1970s, in which Fonny (Stephan James) and Tish (KiKi Layne) fall in love and begin to make a life, only to have it interrupted by the systemic forces around them. Regina King won an Oscar for best supporting actress, summoning her considerable force and sensitivity as Tish’s mother, who takes on a doomed mission to clear Fonny’s name; Brian Tyree Henry is unforgettable as an old friend who becomes a cautionary tale.Stream it here.‘The Italian Job’ (Aug. 31)So much of the original “Italian Job” is so delightfully but specifically of its late-60s Swinging London moment that it would seem a fool’s errand not only to remake it but also to update it. F. Gary Gray’s 2003 version pulls it off by taking a minimalist approach, choosing simply to adopt the original film’s most memorable elements (big heist, colorful crew, Mini-Coopers) and otherwise basically start from scratch. The cast — including Yasiin Bey, Seth Green, Edward Norton, Donald Sutherland, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron and Mark Wahlberg — is charismatic, the set pieces are crisply executed, and the big climax is an all-timer.Stream it here.‘A Knight’s Tale’ (Aug. 31)Another period musical, this one from the writer and director Brian Helgeland (an Oscar winner for co-writing the “L.A. Confidential” screenplay), takes a similar swing-for-the-fences approach, scoring its story of jousting and romance in 14th century England with ’70s rock hits like “We Will Rock You” and “Takin’ Care of Business.” It’s wildly anachronistic but joyfully so, as Helgeland and his attractive cast — including the charismatic golden boy Heath Ledger, the striking ingénue Shannyn Sossamon and the sneeringly villainous scene-stealer Rufus Sewell — strike just the right balance of good humor and old-fashioned earnestness.Stream it here.‘Mean Girls’ (Aug. 31)Tina Fey was still known only as a writer and an occasional on-camera performer at “Saturday Night Live” when she penned this inventively loose adaptation of the nonfiction study “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” by Rosalind Wiseman. Fey dramatizes Wiseman’s anthropological survey of teenage clique culture by telling the tale of Cady (Lindsay Lohan), a longtime home-schooler entering the hellscape of high school life for the first time. The director Mark Waters, who deftly directed Lohan in the previous year’s “Freaky Friday” remake, confidently orchestrates the curricular chaos, which includes brief but hilarious appearances by Fey and her “S.N.L.” castmates Ana Gasteyer, Tim Meadows and Amy Poehler, and by then-up-and-comers like Lizzy Caplan, Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried.Stream it here.‘Paranormal Activity’ (Aug. 31)The beauty of horror, for the low-budget filmmaker attempting to break into the biz, is that it doesn’t require stars, expensive locations or even (if you do it right) elaborate special effects. The genre is the star, and if a filmmaker can create tension and suspense with minimal resources, the cash can roll in. That’s certainly what happened with this 2009 shocker, put together on a shoestring budget of $10,000 and grossing just shy of $200 million worldwide. The movie’s writer, director and editor, Oren Peli, cleverly turns his technological shortcomings into bonuses, crafting a found-footage story of things going bump in the night with gooseflesh raising inventiveness.Stream it here.‘The Ring’ (Aug. 31)Hideo Nakata’s 1998 Japanese horror thriller “Ringu” had such a beautifully simple but arresting premise — a videotape is so disturbing that anyone who watches it will die within days — that it was probably only a matter of time before it was remade for American audiences. Gore Verbinski’s 2002 variation can’t quite pack the novelty punch of the original, but it is deliciously unnerving all the same, collecting heavy helpings of dread and perturbing imagery and seasoning them with a light touch of meta-commentary. (Are we, the horror movie audience, any wiser than those poor souls onscreen?) Naomi Watts provides a rooting interest as the cynical reporter investigating the tape’s mysterious origins and the spell it casts.Stream it here.‘Salt’ (Aug. 31)Angelina Jolie fronted her fair share of action movies, but she never really seemed to find the right vehicle for her particular talents. Except this once. In Evelyn Salt — a clever super spy who may be a Russian mole, or a C.I.A. operative, or both, or something else entirely — Jolie lands on the perfect role for her distinctive blend of butt-kicking athleticism, sensuality and intelligence. She also has the right director for the job in Phillip Noyce, the spy movie specialist (his filmography includes “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger”) who can navigate breathless action sequences and espionage exposition with equal aplomb.Stream it here.‘She’s Gotta Have It’ (Aug. 31)Spike Lee helped launch the ’90s indie movement and a renewed interest in Black cinema, to say nothing of his own durable career, with this, his 1986 feature debut. Lee writes, directs, edits and memorably co-stars as Mars Blackmon, one of the three men vying for the physical and emotional attention of Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns), a Brooklyn graphic artist who has decided not to settle for any one suitor. The picture’s low-budget seams occasionally show, and its sexual politics are occasionally out of date (particularly in the third act). But the cinematic energy, fierce comic spirit and unflinching realism of Lee’s best work is already on display in this formative effort, which also inspired a recent Netflix series adaptation.Stream it here.‘Sleepless in Seattle’ (Aug. 31)The writer and director Nora Ephron recaptured the box office magic of “When Harry Met Sally” (which she wrote for the director Rob Reiner) with this sparklingly romantic and sweetly funny riff on “An Affair to Remember” (and its own various remakes and iterations). Tom Hanks stars as a single father and recent widower whose searching call to a late-night radio talk show goes the mid-90s equivalent of viral; Meg Ryan is a soon-to-be-wed journalist who falls for this voice in the night and pursues his affections, against all odds (and her better judgment).Stream it here. More

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      They Put the Heart in ‘Heartstopper’

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      Kit Connor and Joe Locke discuss the pressure of expectations and how the global success of their Netflix hit, returning Aug. 3, has changed their lives.Kit Connor and Joe Locke sat on a plump bordello-red couch at the Manhattan headquarters of Netflix. It was June, and they were in town to talk about their roles as the leading sweeties on “Heartstopper,” Alice Oseman’s romantic dramedy series about queer British high schoolers that begins its sophomore season on Netflix on Aug. 3.When “Heartstopper” debuted in April 2022, its fate was anybody’s guess. “Euphoria,” “Elite” and other shows with teen queer characters lured eyeballs with sex and bad behavior. “Heartstopper” offered its audience mellow dramatics and an understanding that puppy love is universal. “Just queer people being,” as Connor put it.It paid off. “Heartstopper” made the Netflix Top 10 — a list of the service’s most-watched shows in a given week — in 54 countries, and its first-season numbers were good enough to get the show renewed for two more. To date on TikTok, #heartstopper has 10.7 billion views and counting. Readers also gobbled up the source material: Oseman’s best-selling graphic novels and original webcomic, which now has over 124 million views. In April, Oseman announced that a fifth graphic novel was set to publish in November, with a sixth in the works.So my first question was: How has the “Heartstopper” phenomenon changed the lives of the two actors at its center?“The easier question is how hasn’t this changed our life?” Locke said.He wore a cream-colored cardigan with elegant vertical caviar beading plus skinny jeans and black sneakers, looking a lot like how his character, the misfit naïf Charlie, might dress if he were on a class trip to New York. Connor wore a blousy turquoise top and wide-legged black pants over what looked like flamenco heels — an elegant ensemble that his character, Nick, who is Charlie’s anxious jock boyfriend, would be aghast to find in his closet.Now 19, as is Connor, Locke said he’s had to grow up fast but in exchange got a platform to “normalize queerness.” Example: Days after our interview, Locke posted on Instagram a photo of himself wearing a “Trans Rights Are Human Rights” T-shirt on a float in D.C.’s Pride parade, an image that his 3.5 million followers have showered with over a million likes.In the new season, Charlie and Nick go to Paris together on a class trip.Teddy Cavendish/Netflix“There’s a big push in our world at the moment to take away young queer people’s autonomy,” Locke said. “It’s beautiful to be part of a show that really pushes and loves that young queer people can be in charge of their own fates.”And Connor?“I’m a bit more confident in myself in a very open sense, about who I am, what I can do, the way that I hold myself and the people I spend my time with,” he said. “I have a lot more pride.”But then we started talking about coming out, and the mood in the room shifted, fast. Last year, Connor came out on Twitter as bisexual, saying he felt forced to do so after some fans accused him of queer-baiting.“Telling someone you’re gay or bi or part of the queer community, there’s a thing where you feel like they might see you differently or think that it would change who you are,” he said. “For me, it’s just who I am. Coming out didn’t change me.”He’s cool with being called queer, he said, explaining that it is “more freeing in a way, less about labels.”Locke, who also identifies as queer, jumped in: “I think coming out is stupid, that it’s still a thing that people have to do.” He said he briefly came out at 12 on Instagram before reconsidering.“I had just told my mum, and I was on top of the world,” he said. “I quickly realized I was ready to tell my mum but I was not ready to tell the world. So I quickly deleted it and said my Instagram had been hacked. I went back in the closet for three years. I retold all my friends and they’re like, ‘Yeah, you told us two years ago.’”And now that he’s out-out and playing gay on “Heartstopper”? Locke glanced down and fingered his rings.“Twelve-year-old me would be very proud, and terrified,” he said.He paused to let tears collect in his eyes. “I’m getting emotional,” he whispered. Connor watched him. The room was still. “I’ve never thought about it in that sense before,” Locke continued, “which is weird because I’ve thought about the show a lot.”After a few seconds, he said softly: “It’s great.” He wore a teeny grin.“They’re meant for each other,” Connor said of his and Locke’s characters.Victoria Will for The New York TimesQueer pride, quick-fire emotions, happy tears, supportive mums: It’s like these guys are on “Heartstopper” or something. Thea Glassman, the author of “Freaks, Gleeks and Dawson’s Creek: How 7 Teen Shows Transformed Television,” said the series is rich in a rare commodity for contemporary teen television: “unapologetic sweetness.”“It’s about kindness and positivity and acceptance, and as teens, that’s all you’re looking for,” she told me. “As adults, that’s all you’re looking for.”The new season focuses on Nick and Charlie’s couple stuff: sharing a bed during a class trip to Paris, navigating hickey shame, coming out about their relationship. There is still no sex or even under the shirt stuff, though — there is no second base in “Heartstopper.”There is also a character who is asexual (as is Oseman) and new transgender characters that Locke said he hopes will help transgender kids understand “that there are still people in the world who have their backs.”Locke and Connor were very aware that expectations from fans, Netflix and industry watchers are considerable now that the show is a global hit. The pressure, Locke said, is “terrifying.”But if they were antsy about it, it didn’t show in their relaxed rapport and modest demeanors. Connor, who grew up in Croydon in South London, comes across as grounded and affable, and he speaks with considered thoughtfulness, like he actually took notes during media training.Locke has Charlie’s gentle deportment but with the soft edge of a cool-kid wise guy. As our conversation turned to their own education, Connor mentioned that he “wasn’t one of those people who thrived at school,” and sheepishly said he got a B in drama. When he finished, Locke leaned over, cracked himself up and said into my recorder: “You don’t need school, kids. He got a B in drama.”Locke said a sharp tongue is one way he protected himself while growing up on the Isle of Man. “People knew not to give me [expletive],” he said.”I think coming out is stupid, that it’s still a thing that people have to do,” Locke said.Victoria Will for The New York TimesAs for what’s next, Connor is set to star in a new horror-thriller, “One of Us,” and Locke recently shot “Agatha: Coven of Chaos,” Marvel’s “WandaVision” spinoff. The stage beckons: Locke wants to be in a Broadway musical, Connor would do Shakespeare in London. If they had free time, Connor would hang with friends in a park. Locke wants someone to make him brunch.As our conversation ended, I asked both men where they’d like their characters to be in 20 years.“The hope would certainly be that they’re still together,” Connor said softly, looking at Locke as if to get approval.“I think they would be,” Locke replied, glancing back.“They’re meant for each other,” Connor said.“They’d have some children, a family,” Locke said.“Happy would be nice,” Connor said.“Yeah,” Locke said, again with that grin. “Just happy.” More

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      in Movies

      Searching for Someone to Deliver a Hollywood Ending

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      Thanks to a changing culture and differing business models, the entertainment industry lacks power brokers with the stature to bring on labor peace.The 1954 Hollywood classic “On the Waterfront” ends with unionized longshoremen on a dock. They’re fed up and standing idle, staring at a bloodied Marlon Brando. All of a sudden, an authoritative man in a fancy suit and a natty hat arrives. “We gotta get this ship going,” he barks. “It’s costing us money!”Over the last week, as TV and movie actors went on strike for the first time in 43 years, joining already striking screenwriters on picket lines, Hollywood started looking around for its version of that figure — someone, anyone, to find a solution to the standoff and get America’s motion picture factories running again.But the more the entertainment industry looked, the more it became clear that such a person may no longer exist.“Back in the day, it was Lew Wasserman who would enter the talks and move them along,” said Jason E. Squire, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, referring to the superagent turned studio mogul. “Today, it is different. Traditional studios and the technology companies that have moved into Hollywood have different cultures and business models. There is no studio elder, respected by both sides, to help broker a deal.”At the moment, no talks between union leaders and the involved companies are happening and none have been scheduled, with each side insisting the other has to make the first move.Two federal mediators have been studying the issues that led to the breakdown in negotiations. Agents and lawyers are engaged in a flurry of back-channel phone conversations, encouraging union leaders and studio executives to soften their unmovable positions; Bryan Lourd, the Creative Artists Agency heavyweight, asked the Biden administration and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California to get involved, according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the labor situation. A spokesman for Mr. Lourd declined to comment.Emotions must cool before talks restart, said one entertainment lawyer who has been working in the background to bring the sides together again. When does that happen? He said it could be next week or it could be-mid August.Starting in 1960, the last time both actors and writers were on strike, and continuing into the 1990s, the person who could break an impasse was the feared Wasserman. He commanded the respect of both labor and management and could push beyond the colorful personalities in each camp.It was an era when the entertainment business, for the most part, was much less complicated. Studios had not become buried inside conglomerates and beholden to lucrative toy divisions, not to mention having to deliver quarterly growth.Bob Daly, who ran Warner Bros. in the 1980s and ’90s, said he thought it was troubling that the labor strife had gotten personal.Valerie Macon/WireImage, via Getty ImagesBob Daly, who ran Warner Bros. in the 1980s and ’90s, picked up the mantle from Wasserman, who died in 2002. Mr. Daly, who went on to run the Los Angeles Dodgers, said by phone that he was no longer involved in Hollywood’s labor strife. But he had some advice.“One thing that has troubled me is that it has become personal, which I think is a mistake,” Mr. Daly said. “The only way this is going to get solved is for both sides to get in a room and talk, talk, talk until they find compromises. Neither side is going to get everything it wants. You can yell and scream inside that room — I did myself many times — but don’t come out until you have a deal.”The last Hollywood strike took place in 2007 and 2008. The Writers Guild of America walked out over a variety of issues, with compensation for shows distributed online a major sticking point. It was resolved after 100 days (the current writers’ strike was 81 days old on Thursday) when Peter Chernin, then president of News Corporation, and Robert A. Iger, Disney’s relatively new chief executive at the time, took a hands-on role in solving the stalemate. Barry M. Meyer, who was chairman of Warner Bros., and Jeffrey Katzenberg, then the chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, also played roles.All those men, with the possible exception of Mr. Chernin, are now busy with other matters or viewed as villains by actors.Mr. Iger, who returned to run Disney in November after a brief retirement, became a picket line piñata last week after telling CNBC that, while he respected “their right and their desire to get as much as they possibly can,” union leaders were not being “realistic.” The backdrop of his interview, a meeting of elite media and technology executives in Sun Valley, Idaho, poured gasoline on the moment.Mr. Katzenberg largely left the entertainment business in 2020 after the collapse of Quibi, his streaming start-up. In April, Mr. Katzenberg was named a co-chair of President Biden’s re-election campaign.Mr. Meyer retired from Hollywood in 2013 after a celebrated 42 years and went on to sit on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. “I’ve had nothing to do with the negotiations this year,” he said in an email. “That being said, it doesn’t stop me from feeling sad about the way things are stuck right now.”Peter Chernin was instrumental in ending the last writers’ strike when he was president of News Corporation. He left Hollywood’s corporate ranks in 2009.Annie Tritt for The New York TimesThat leaves Mr. Chernin. He left Hollywood’s corporate ranks in 2009 and founded an independent company that includes a film and television production arm — he has a deal with Netflix — and a sprawling investment portfolio focused on new technology and media companies. In recent days, Mr. Chernin told one senior associate that he had not been approached for help in the strikes, but that he would be hard-pressed to say no if asked.A spokeswoman for Mr. Chernin declined to comment.The studios that now must figure out how to appease actors and writers are wildly different in size and have diverging priorities. They all say they want to resolve the strikes. But some are more willing than others to compromise and immediately restart talks. The willing camp includes WarnerBros. Discovery, while Disney, which owns Disney+ and Hulu, has taken a harder line, according to two people involved in the negotiations. WarnerBros. Discovery and Disney declined to comment.Some people in Hollywood have been looking to elected officials to help smooth a path, but so far direct involvement, if any, has been unclear. The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, last week called the actors’ strike “an urgent issue that must be resolved, and I will be working to make that happen.” A spokesman did not respond to queries about what she was specifically doing.Mr. Newsom said in May that he would intervene in the writers’ strike “when called in by both sides.” He has not commented on the actors’ walkout, and a spokesman did not respond to queries.With two unions on strike, it could be months before new contracts can be negotiated and ratified. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the biggest studios, has decided to first focus on resolving differences with SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is known, according to the two people involved in the negotiations.Cameras may not begin rolling again until January, given the time it takes to reassemble casts and crews, with the end-of-year holidays as a complication, executives at WarnerBros. Discovery and other companies told staff members this week.SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America are striking largely because, they say, entertainment companies — led by Netflix — have adopted unfair compensation formulas for streaming. This was the biggest sticking point at the negotiating table, much more so than union demands for guardrails around artificial intelligence, according to three people briefed on the matter. (The companies defended their proposed improvements to the contract as “historic.”)Under the now-expired contracts, streaming services pay residuals (a form of royalty) to actors and writers based on subscriber totals in the United States and Canada. The actors’ union, in particular, has made it clear that a new contract must go back to a version of the old way — with streaming services using pay formulas that are based on the popularity of shows and movies, the way traditional television channels have done for decades, with Nielsen as an independent measuring stick.Streaming companies refuse to divulge granular viewership data; secrecy is part of Big Tech’s culture. Independent measuring companies, including Nielsen, have tried to fill the gap, but they have provided only vague information — what is generating a lot of views, what is not. Nobody except the companies knows if a streaming show like “Stranger Things” is watched by 100 million people worldwide or 50 million.Netflix signaled on Wednesday that it saw the data it discloses as sufficient. The company posts weekly top-10 lists on its site; the rankings are based on “engagement,” which Netflix defines as total hours viewed divided by run time.“We believe sharing this engagement data on a regular basis helps talent and the broader industry understand what success looks like on Netflix — and we hope that other streamers become more transparent about engagement on their services over time,” Netflix said in its quarterly letter to shareholders.John Koblin More

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      in Movies

      ‘They Cloned Tyrone’ Review: There’s Only One John Boyega

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      In Juel Taylor’s imaginative sci-fi movie, Boyega teams up with Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris to find the forces undermining their community.“They Cloned Tyrone,” an ambitious, nightmarish tale about unsettled identity, opens with an image of two blue eyes, strained at the corners. The camera pulls back, revealing the owner of those peepers to be a grinning white man on a billboard with the tagline “Keep em’ smiling.” In front of the advertisement, Black people debate possible sightings of Tupac Shakur and Michael Jackson, now allegedly disguising himself with new Black skin. The food mart, with the billboard prominently displayed by its door, is where these gossiping Black folk hold court, and is one of the many institutions that dot the neglected, fictional urban landscape its residents refer to as the Glen.The director, Juel Taylor, sees the Glen as a self-contained world where conspiracy theories are the news section and the neighborhood drunk (Leon Lamar) is a prophet. At the center of it is Fontaine (John Boyega), a multifaceted drug dealer. Whenever he buys a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor from the food mart, he never hesitates to pour a cup for Lamar. He’ll also mercilessly ram an unsuspecting rival dealer with his car, and then later care for that enemy’s invalid mother.Fontaine’s moral compass is survival. The same can be said of the shifty pimp, Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), who dispenses women like Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) with the assurance they’ll always come back. While collecting a debt from Slick Charles, Fontaine is savagely gunned down by the dealer he hit earlier. Despite the shooting, Fontaine awakes the next morning unscathed. Was it a dream or something more nefarious?The first hour of “They Cloned Tyrone” is surprisingly talkative. Fontaine, Slick Charles, and Yo-Yo — shady neighborhood acquaintances — team up to investigate Fontaine’s brush with death, sharing extraneous banter that often crowds the narrative and slows the reveal. The three eventually discover a series of elevators in familiar haunts that lead to a subterranean laboratory. Taylor positions these sites as places where an outside force can easily undermine the Black community, rendering it pliant through food, religion and beauty products. You wonder, however, whether the film is portraying these spaces as necessary sites for escapist joy or scrutinizing them as crutches.Another fascinating proposition arises when a Black character utters the phrase “assimilation is better than annihilation.” The film covers issues of upward mobility, respectability politics, racial passing, and the distrust some African Americans have of institutional professionals such as the police, doctors and scientists. Taylor portrays Black self-hatred as a danger equal to these extensions of white contempt.A play on “The Truman Show” by way of “Undercover Brother,” “They Cloned Tyrone” also stands firmly on its glossy style — the evocatively smoky John Carpenter-esque cinematography and the Blaxploitation-inspired costumes — and its spirited performances. Even when the dialogue runs long and the film’s frights offer less terror than you’d want in a sci-fi-mystery flick, an inspired Foxx, a subversive Parris, and a ruthless yet melancholic Boyega, who shoulders the bulk of the dramatic weight, retrofit common stereotypes of urban Black life into the rich, dynamic humanism of its reality.They Cloned TyroneRated R for profanity and nude body doubles. Running time: 2 hours, 2 minutes. Watch on Netflix or in theaters. More

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      in Television

      ‘Break Point’ Just Might Be the Best Way to Watch Tennis

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      The docuseries feels more like a prestige psychodrama — which gets the highs and lows of the pro circuit right.In the sixth episode of the Netflix docuseries “Break Point,” Ajla Tomljanovic, a journeywoman tennis player who has spent much of the last decade in the Top 100 of the world rankings, is shown splayed across an exercise mat in a drab training room after reaching the 2022 Wimbledon quarterfinals. Her father, Ratko, stretches out her hamstrings. She receives a congratulatory phone call from her sister and another from her idol-turned-mentor, the 18-time major champion Chris Evert, before Ratko announces that it’s time for the dreaded ice bath. “By the way,” Tomljanovic says at one point, “do we have a room?” Shortly after his daughter sealed her spot in the final eight of the world’s pre-eminent tennis tournament, Ratko was seen on booking.com, extending their stay in London.This is not the stuff of your typical sports documentary, but it is the life of a professional tennis player. Circumnavigating the globe for much of the year with only a small circle of coaches, physiotherapists and perhaps a parent, they shoulder alone the bureaucratic irritations that, in other elite sports, might be outsourced to agents and managers. If at some tournaments they surprise even themselves by outlasting their hotel accommodations, most events will only harden them to the standard torments of the circuit, which reminds them weekly of their place in the pecking order. As Taylor Fritz, now the top-ranked American men’s player, remarks in one “Break Point” episode, “It’s tough to be happy in tennis, because every single week everyone loses but one person.” This is a sobering audit, coming from a player who wins considerably more than his approximately 2,000 peers on the tour.“Break Point,” executive-produced by Paul Martin and the Oscar-winning filmmaker James Gay-Rees, arrived this year as a gift to tennis fans, for whom splashy, well-produced and readily accessible documentaries about the sport have been hard to come by. Tennis, today, finds itself in the crepuscular light of an era when at least five different players — the Williams sisters, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — have surely deserved mini-series of their own. But the sport has never enjoyed its own “All or Nothing,” the all-access Amazon program that follows a different professional sports team each season, or the event-television status accorded to “The Last Dance,” the Netflix docuseries about Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, with its luxury suite of talking heads: Nas, Isiah Thomas, “former Chicago resident” Barack Obama. Perhaps this is because the narrative tropes of the genre tend toward triumphs and Gatorade showers, while the procedural and psychological realities of professional tennis lie elsewhere. The 10 episodes of “Break Point” render tennis unromantically: This is the rare sports doc whose primary subject is loss.In Andre Agassi’s memorably frank memoir, “Open,” he describes the tennis calendar with subtle poetry, detailing “how we start the year on the other side of the world, at the Australian Open, and then just chase the sun.” This itinerary more or less dictates the structure of “Break Point,” which opens at the year’s first Grand Slam and closes at the year-end championships in November. At each tournament, the players it spotlights post impressive results — and then, typically, they lose, thwarted sometimes by the sport’s stubborn luminaries but more often by bouts of nerves or exhaustion. They find comfort where they can, juggling a soccer ball or lying back with a self-made R.&B. track in a hotel room. But many tears are shed, after which they redouble their commitments to work harder, be smarter, get hungrier. “You have to be cold to build a champion mind-set,” says the Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas.‘It’s tough to be happy in tennis.’Those who watched Wimbledon this month might find, in all this, an instructive companion piece to live tennis. “Break Point” is frustratingly short on actual game play, shaving matches down to their rudiments in a way that understates the freakish tactical discipline required of players; viewers will not, for example, come away with any greater understanding of point construction than they will from having watched Djokovic pull his opponents out wide with progressively heavier forehands, only to wrong-foot them with a backhand up the line. They will, however, come to understand how intensely demoralizing it must be to stand across the net from him. In an episode following last year’s Wimbledon, we watch the talented but irascible Nick Kyrgios, as close as tennis has to its own Dennis Rodman, play Djokovic in the final. He gets off to a hot start and then, like so many before him, begins to wilt. “He’s calmer; you can’t rush him,” he says of Djokovic, in a voice-over the series aptly sets against footage of an exasperated Kyrgios admonishing the umpire, the crowd, even friends and family in his own box. These are athletes we’re accustomed to seeing at their steeliest or their most combustible; the matches in “Break Point” may be fresh in the memory of most tennis fans, but the series benefits greatly from its subjects’ clearer-headed reflections.For all its pretensions to realism, “Break Point” is a shrewd, and perhaps doomed, attempt to fill the sport’s impending power vacuum. Kyrgios and Tsitsipas are among a handful of strivers it positions as the sport’s new stars, along with others like Casper Ruud, Ons Jabeur and Aryna Sabalenka. All, naturally, subjected themselves to Netflix’s cameras. This kind of access is increasingly crucial to sports documentaries, a fact that often results in work that’s unduly deferential to its subjects, as with “The Last Dance” and Michael Jordan.Tennis, though, runs counter to this mandate. It is perhaps the sport most conducive to solipsism. Singles players perform alone. On-court coaching is generally prohibited, so there are no rousing speeches to inspire unlikely comebacks. The game’s essential psychodrama takes place within the mind — often in the 25 seconds allotted between points, or in the split seconds during which one must decide whether to go cross-court or down the line, to flatten the ball or welter it with spin. I can remember, as a junior-tennis also-ran, my coaches saying that once my eyes wandered to my opponent across the net, they knew I would lose. This might explain why tennis players so often resort to their index of obsessive tics, like hiking up their socks or adjusting their racket strings just so.By the season’s end, we meet Tomljanovic again at the U.S. Open, where she earned the awkward distinction of sending Serena Williams into retirement. At the time, ESPN’s broadcast of the match yielded nearly five million viewers, making it the most-watched tennis telecast in the network’s history. This was Serena’s swan song, but “Break Point” depicts it from the perspective of our reluctant victor. Between the second and third sets, Tomljanovic shields her face with a sweat towel, as if to quiet the sound of 24,000 spectators rooting against her. In tennis, it seems, even winning can feel like a drag.After the match, we find Tomljanovic cooling down on a stationary bike. Ratko, who has emerged as the show’s sole source of comedic relief, comes up from behind, embracing his daughter with a joke about her beating the greatest player of all time. “But why do I feel so conflicted?” she asks. There is no Gatorade bath, no confetti. To win the tournament, she still has four more matches to go.Opening illustration: Source photographs from Netflix; Tim Clayton/Corbis, via Getty ImagesJake Nevins is a writer in Brooklyn and the digital editor at Interview Magazine. He has written about books, sports and pop culture for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The Nation. More