'Mozart in the Jungle' on Amazon

Amazon’s ten-part series Mozart in the Jungle gives us that look through the eyes of a naif, oboist Hailey Rutledge (Lola Kirke), a stand-in for the author of the 2005 memoir on which the show is based. Blair Tindall’s subtitle for her book — “Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music” — tells you a fair amount about the series’ irreverent take, but doesn’t convey the passion for the music that also shines through.

Music, maestro, please

The series opens with a changing of the guard: Thomas Pembridge (Malcolm McDowell) is stepping down as maestro of a New York City orchestra, and Rodrigo de Souza (Gael García Bernal) — a South American wunderkind clearly based on Gustavo Dudamel — has been named as his successor. Thomas wants to dismiss Rodrigo as a pretty boy, but the latter is both completely qualified, as his comments on Thomas’s last concert indicate, and respectful of Thomas.

Thomas isn’t the only one more preoccupied by Rodrigo’s considerable charisma than his musical skill. Board member Gloria Windsor (Bernadette Peters) supports the marketing pro’s suggestion that they promote the new season as “Hear the Hair” — a suggestion that Rodrigo responds to by chopping off his ponytail — and pimps him out to a gathering of wealthy women of a certain age, hoping he’ll charm open their checkbooks. His response to that is not quite what Gloria hoped for, but also isn’t a clichéd prima donna (sic) moment.

Rodrigo’s struggles to adjust to his new role, to figure out what to play at his first concert, and to resolve his relationship with the enigmatic violinist Anna Maria (Nora Arnezeder) are mirrored by Hailey’s struggles to find a way into the world of classical music. I love that she’s an oboist — a detail based on the source material, of course, but also perfect from a dramatic point of view, because a) who the hell plays the oboe, and b) well, of course an orchestra needs an oboist. Or two or three. And yeah, it would be a good idea to have that person be passionate about the oboe, wouldn’t it?

An immersive experience

Thus the show’s creators immerse the non-classical-music-lover into a world he or she hasn’t given much thought to in a way that respects the viewer’s intelligence and also reflects the reality of that world for the hundreds of people scrambling to get into — or stay in — it. Orchestra members pick up money however they can, whether it’s as musicians (playing in commercials, teaching) or not (the orchestra’s percussionist sells drugs to his colleagues on the side — a labor of love, one gathers).

That character, used as a comic leitmotif, is the exception, though: Most of them cannot be summed up in ten words or fewer. Both the denizens of the orchestra, and a few beyond it (Hailey’s roommate, her beau) are complex individuals whose backstories and personalities are revealed over the course of the series. The three big names in the cast — Bernal, McDowell, and Peters — are especially well cast, but there’s not a clunker in the group, with the possible exception of co-creator Jason Schwartzman’s turn as a classical music blogger.

The show’s creators (Paul Weitz, Roman Coppola, and Schwartzman) use the half-hour episodes to tell Hailey’s and Rodrigo’s stories episodically while keeping the overall story arc moving. Though that arc is resolved in the last episode of the season, there are plenty of story lines with places to go. Amazon hasn’t yet announced if they’re going to do a second season: I hope they will.

2/19 update: Apparently Amazon has ordered a second season of the show.

For Tom Purdom's review of the book on which the TV show is based, click here.