Kidding | agoodmovietowatch

Rated 7+ IMDb · 70%+ RT Little-known finds Curated by humans

Kidding 7.4 2020 Show

Kidding

Dave Holstein · United States of America · English

Traces of Eternal Sunshine in Jim Carrey's TV comeback

Amazon Video Apple Itunes

Our take by Bilal Zouheir

Jim Carrey stars in this unusual show dubbed a “tragicomedy”. He plays Mr. Jeff Pickles, the host of a beloved children’s show who has a do-gooder way of looking at life.

In contrast to his job cheering up kids and giving lessons in what’s good or bad, he has to deal with a dark reality: the passing of his son. His wife left him as a consequence and he lives alone and away from his family.

Kidding is about the contradictions that a life in show business brings and about what it takes for an optimistic person like Jeff to break. Produced and directed by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director, Michel Gondry.

What happens

Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles, is an icon of children's TV. But when his family begins to implode, Jeff finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through this crisis, which advances faster than his means to cope. The result: a kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

What the critics said

Notable Critics

"Trapped inside a part, he's a fraction of a man. Listen for the moments when the softness of his nurturing voice shades into a pale hush, as if he is speaking from an unreachable distance, stranded in a land of make-believe."

— Troy Patterson

"I really loved this! For one thing, it's a sign of genuine growth that Jeff finally realizes that kids need someone to hear them, not someone to tell them what to do - a lesson he learned from Will repeating it more or less constantly all season."

— Harry Waksberg

Awards

Golden Globes

2 noms

Nominated: Best Performance by an Actor in a Television SeriesNominated: Best Television Series

Comments

Add your review

Your email address will not be published.*

TV shows like Kidding

About the author

Bilal Zouheir

Bilal Zouheir

Bilal Zouheir is the founder of A Good Movie to Watch. He is based in the US and a member of the Nevada Film Critics Society. He grew up in Morocco, where he learned English from watching movies. Bilal's work with A Good Movie to Watch is focused on offering an alternative to streaming algorithms, which are often used as commercial tools by streaming services.