TV Review: Apple TV Plus Gets Physical
Remember that Peloton commercial where the husband gave his working wife/ mother to his kids the spin bike for Christmas with the insinuation that she had completely let herself go. Meanwhile, she looked beautiful and fine. Funnily, I kept on thinking of that commercial as I watched Apple TV’s Physical: out June 18. Even today, 2021, there is an expectation that women should serve their men, look good while doing it, and have seemingly fulfilled their life’s purpose if they have a few kids, too. Physical may be in the 80s, but Rose Byrne’s Sheila is feels like women all the time when it comes to their body and being defined in this world according to how others want it.
The show does well to set up Sheila’s pure, spiritual exhaustion. She is so emotionally drained by her life that she has become an existence, and her voice-over narrations of absolute self-loathing and self-doubt don’t help. Obviously, the audience grows to feel for her, especially because you would think she is trying to be an influencer with how many self-edits she desires… except…. maybe she is? What makes Physical shine is that, in a way, it shows the “influencer” is not a new concept. Part of why Sheila and her “friend/”puppet, Greta ( Dierdre Friel) get attracted to aerobics is that in a “physical/” material world, they don’t feel like they have power and they don’t. Both are housewives whose bodies are for maintaining everyone pleased, and aerobics releases, in some ways, Sheila’s inner “warlord” thanks to a sparkling, young teacher named Bunny (Della Saba). For Sheila, she has been teasing her hair and the world for too long with her potential and no husband is going to stop her.
Rory Scovel’s Danny Rubin should honestly be one of the husbands on Why Women Kill, but he stands as a good example that un-empowered women don’t attract the most empowering men. I am a firm believer that how you see yourself attracts people who will look at you the same way, and both Sheila and David see her as invisible and mundane. She is a centerpiece that he gawks at as he ponders his own political dreams and aims for his own empire while bumbling through life in self-pity and illicit flirtations with his students. Yet, life has a funny way of making this wife and husband re-evaluate how they value materiality, of which, for the audience, both are not exactly likable in their new assessments.
We have the tendency to believe that poor people aren’t materialistic; after all, if you don’t have material how can you be materialistic? Yet, I don’t have a car, am not even close to having one, and I LOVE sports-luxury vehicles. The sad part is that poor people can be even more materialistic than rich people, but the difference is that we define ourselves according to what we don’t have compared to rich, privileged people that define themselves according to what they do. Moreover, rich people are the reason poor people are poor. Thus, Sheila and Danny never really change in their inner cruelty because these are two souls that want things, and their emotional crux is that they don’t have them, but their “tv journey” is how getting them only gives them the confidence to unleash their inner cruelty more openly on others.
Created by Craig Gillepsie (I, Tonya) what is so oddly cool about Physical is that it is the story of people, whom many will not like, but the truth is that they don’t like themselves, as well. I didn’t walk away from Physical saying, “These people are great. I am so happy when they succeed.” In fact, by the end, I was not sure where to place Sheila in the murky waters of “anti-hero” and “villain.” Yet, that seemed to be Craig’s purpose. Some monsters are born, some are made, and some are just waiting for their chance to finally become one. Sheila can definitely fit the latter, and, frankly, I was riveted at seeing it. Check Out Physical On June 18 on Apple TV Plus .
