Courtesy of CNN
On Friday, Oct. 18, Netflix released “Living with Yourself,” a show starring Paul Rudd and … Paul Rudd. Rudd plays Miles Elliot, an unmotivated burnout who is desperate for a way to improve his life. His relationship with his wife, Kate, is crumbling and his career is stagnant. After a coworker suggests a highly exclusive spa that could turn his life around, Miles sees this as a possibility to become a better husband and employee. Located in a sketchy strip mall is the Top Happy Spa, where a small sum of $50,000 could provide the treatment Miles needs to achieve his goals. Despite not knowing what the treatment will be or why any spa would need that much money, Miles puts his trust in the establishment.
After being put under anesthetics, Miles wakes up in the Top Happy Spa feeling exponentially better. However, this “Miles” is not the same person shown earlier in the episode. This is not just because of an attitude shift, but because the real Miles is buried in the middle of a forest. This life-changing spa treatment is in fact a cloning experiment where a “better” version of the person is created, while the “lesser” version is killed and buried.
Original Miles meets the new Miles, an almost exact clone who retains all of the same memories as the original Miles. From then on, trouble ensues. The two constantly switch places, which mostly results in the new Miles going to, and excelling at, Miles’ job and being the perfect husband to a woman he actually isn’t married to. “Living with Yourself” is a mix between “Black Mirror” and “The Parent Trap.” It is disturbing enough to keep you in suspense, but funny enough to make you come back for more.
What makes “Living with Yourself” such a success is the incredible acting done by Paul Rudd. He is able to differentiate between original Miles and new Miles in order to show their similarities and highlight their differences. It is an interesting sensation as a viewer to simultaneously root for and against the main character. Though the subject matter of the show is serious and dark, interjections of Rudd’s humor ensure that the storyline is not as cookie-cutter as one might expect. While at times it can be somewhat confusing to tell Paul Rudd apart from himself, there is no other actor that could have pulled it off – except for Lindsay Lohan, of course.
Despite there only being eight short episodes, it is not hard to become invested in the lives and relationships of Miles, his clone and Kate as they try to navigate the existence of two duplicate main characters. Netflix has yet to announce if there will be a second season of “Living with Yourself,” but whatever direction they decide to go in will surely be an interesting one. The first season ended in an ambiguous way that makes it seem as if there may be a happy ending, but knowing Netflix, that is unlikely this early on in the series.
Paul Rudd and Paul Rudd are an unlikely duo viewers didn’t know they needed, but after one season, the show leaves people eager for more. Netflix’s “Living with Yourself” radiates suspense and hilarity, and it doesn’t hurt that it has just enough Rudd to go around.
