Apple TV+'s Roar fees like something an AI regurgitates after spending too much time on Twitter

CNET

The feminist anthology series, based on Cecelia Ahern's 2019 book of short stories, "put all the right chess pieces in place with Roar: The star-studded cast includes Nicole Kidman, Alison Brie, Cynthia Erivo, Daniel Dae Kim, Merritt Weaver, Ego Nwodim and many others who'll send you down an IMDb rabbit hole," says Karisa Langlo. "The team behind the scenes is just as pedigreed, with GLOW's Carly Mensch and Liz Flahive running the show and Kidman also executive producing. The dollhouse-like set design is as aesthetically pleasing as it is symbolic, and a couple of the titular women wear some pretty fabulous shoes. But the conceit of the cliche-made-literal never quite takes off, largely because the show doesn't seem all that interested in any of its own inquiries. Or maybe it's because an extended metaphor isn't the same thing as a fully realized story, or that trafficking in cliches is a risky business that sets the bar of original storytelling even higher. Maybe the source material is the problem, because Ahern's stories also seem to mistake consciousness-raising for gender equity and personal empowerment for systemic reform. Maybe all of the above. Or maybe the show was actually written by a bot that's been exclusively trained on Twitter discourse and workplace sexual harassment training videos."

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• Roar is satisfyingly, pleasantly weird: "The new anthology series Roar on Apple TV+ tells eight stories of women in different emotional states. Some of the stories are more comic, some are more dramatic," says Linda Holmes. "The series doesn't have a single, obvious thematic throughline the way, say, the tech-dreading Black Mirror does. What unifies the chapters, other than that they are about women in a variety of circumstances, is that they are satisfyingly, pleasantly weird." What co-creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch "have done is take these offbeat core ideas and spin them into stories that dig into something about the lives of these women," says Holmes. "It's a strength of this format that most of these episodes are in the neighborhood of a half-hour; it allows for a structure where the translation from hook to emotional idea doesn't have to be gradual, because there's only enough time to present the idea, explore it with vividness, and then end the story."
• Roar doesn't quite know what i wants to say: "All the starry turns and strong performances can’t make this anthology series cohere into a show that has something to say about contemporary womanhood," says Gabrielle Bruney, adding: "If Roar’s fairy tales are the bedtime stories of a collective consciousness, the collective is likely one that’s upwardly mobile and disproportionately white. Oh, and probably well-versed in Twitter talking points. Its insights and intentions seem well placed, but anyone who’s had even the slightest curiosity about the state of women in the world will find little illuminating here. That’s the problem with bedtime stories—they’re supposed to lull you to sleep."
• Roar finds a unifying, even driving force: "Rather than lean on heavy drama or be happy experimenting for experiment’s sake, Roar is clear-eyed in its messaging and enthusiastic in its approach," says Ben Travers. "Each tale carries an admirable purpose and evokes genuine curiosity, both as each episode unfolds and in anticipation for what the next entry could bring. As a portrait of women, Roar recognizes the specificity in individual identities while casting relatable perspectives on motherhood, relationships, career-building, and more. It’s as easy to love as it is to admire — and neither feeling fades over the rewarding first season."
• Roar is an example of more being less: "Ostensibly, what lies at the heart of Apple TV+’s Roar are a series of essential truths about womanhood today — or, at least, the essential truths about womanhood as understood by a certain type of woman (mostly straight, mostly middle-class, mostly American) today," says Angie Han. "All eight half-hour episodes of the anthology are created by women and center on women characters dealing with issues like mom guilt or misogyny or abusive relationships, with a touch of magical realism to elevate these everyday concerns to the stuff of fables. Yet in its attempts to universalize these intensely personal experiences, Roar loses much of the heart that makes them worth caring about to begin with. It’s not that the series is lazy; each installment seems carefully planned and polished, and even the worst have some standout moment of wit or beauty. It’s that in trying to speak for so many, Roar ends up saying very little at all."
• Roar is hit-or-miss, as any anthology tends to be, but the overall effect is charming and incisive: "Don’t expect Roar to dig too deep into the complexities of the issues it raises; the episodes, quick and droll and diverting, are simply reminders to Those Who Get It that issues of sexism, ageism, patriarchy, and systemic violence are still commonplace," says Clint Worthington. "But whether you crave the catharsis of an abusive boyfriend being carted off by Animal Control, or the rush of solving your own murder (as Alison Brie does in one cute spin on the police procedural), Roar has enough darkly comic delights to make you shout."
• When Roar works, it really works: "When this series is at its weakest, the concepts struggle to become more than just that," says Rebecca Nicholson. "These episodes are based on clever ideas, neat 'what if?'s,' but some of them don’t quite stretch to 30 minutes’ worth of storytelling. That’s not to say they aren’t entertaining, or thought-provoking, in their own ways, though they do have a tendency to leave little room for the audience to interpret, as the point is explained with a heavy hand. As is often the case with anthologies, then, it is a mixed bag, at times more of a curiosity than it is a fully realised vision. But when it works, it really works, and even when it doesn’t quite come together, it is different enough to demand your attention. That is, after all, what these women are trying to do."
• Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch manage to infuse a darkly comedic sensibility into Roar: "Flahive and Mensch have recruited an all-star ensemble both in front of and behind the camera for their twisted tales," says Chelsea Steiner. "But the episodes are a mixed bag: some hit you over the head with their metaphors, while some take too long to reach their point. Some feel like they run on way too long, while others end abruptly. But just as there are some stumbles, there are some terrific episodes."
• Roar is bold, funny and sometimes uncomfortable -- just like being a woman: "Roar is an anthology series filled with charming and unique tales of womanhood," says Samantha Coley. "Ahern's novel is a strong feminist collection of wildly varied and imaginative stories about what it's like to experience the pressures and struggles — as well as the crushing expectations — of being a woman. Creators and showrunners for the series Carly Mensch and Liz Flahive have adapted Ahern's work into a whimsical, emotional, and relatable collection of episodes with a star-studded cast and crew."
• Roar’s episodes often feel like a feminist spin on The Twilight Zone where there’s no twist and the arc is obvious within the first few minutes: "The predictability is exacerbated by the fact that they all end on a mostly optimistic note, the titular woman finding some combination of internal strength and external support that allows her to get through the struggle she was facing, no matter how terrible or strange it was," says Samantha Nelson. "Yet the surreal and sometimes horrifying journeys can still be captivating."
• The worst part of Roar is also its most consistent: "While every episode of Apple’s new anthology show tackles an entirely different story with a different cast to match, they each open with a neon graphic of a woman’s mouth screaming out of a blooming flower," says Caroline Framke. "With this image, Roar underlines its logline as a feminist scream of a series that, as based on Ceceila Ahern’s book of short stories, explores 'what it means to be a woman today.' Watching its trailer, which leans heavily on wackier moments like Nicole Kidman shoving photographs down her throat, you’d be excused for assuming it’s an exaggerated comedy of girlboss errors. Watching the actual show, though, makes for a bit of a more scattered experience."
• Roar co-creator Liz Flahive on how the show came together: "We had these heavy-hitter, brainy, lady writers, and we didn’t want to just impose the episodes upon them," she says. "So we sent them the book and said, 'Look, tell us which episodes (you like). Pick a handful that you respond to.' We wanted them to come to it with their own point of view, with their own thing to say. So it was a different way of working. Typically, we have a writers’ room, and for this we did one-on-one (work) with a writer, so it was a writers’ room of three many times. The collaboration was pretty deep with the directors because there was such a singularity."
• Flahive breaks down each Roar episode
• Co-creators Carly Mensch and Liz Flahive on the difficulty of making magical realism on TV: "It was something really different and new for us," says Mensch. "We’re grounded, naturalistic writers. But we wanted to push ourselves. We were writing this concurrent with GLOW, and it felt like such a different brain space. I’m sure it’s a really complicated answer, as to why you don’t see more of it, but it may have to do with how difficult it is to pull it off. You need the resources and scale of film production." Flahive adds: "It’s hard to make a TV show, no matter what. But here we’re adding the technical dance of what we can do practically and marrying that with visual effects. We were really keen to do as much as possible, practically, but that puts the onus on the production in a way that is very intense. And we did eight stories. So, as we were trying to solve how the bite marks were going to work, we were also diving into a Western production and training seven ducks to interact with Merritt Wever."