We live in an interesting time. In 2004, Entourage hit the scene with an inside look at an actor on his rise to stardom. When we caught up with Vinnie and his crew, he was already fairly well established in the Hollywood scene. He had the girls, the money, the fame and it really only grew from there. Six years and a pretty seismic economic crash later, do you think many people want to watch some young, rich, pampered celebrity living large in LA? Nope, and in steps How to Make it in America. The new HBO series follows Ben Epstein and Cam Calderon, two, late twenty-something, New Yorkers in their quest to carve out a space, any space for themselves in the fashion world. Sure their surrounded by wealth, art and power; they just don’t have any of it. Ben is a struggling (read: non-practicing) graphic artist and Cam is an angle-shooter, a get rich quick scam artist in training.
We meet these guys at a crossroads. Ben is close to giving up (not on life, but on any dream of success) and Cam is just looking to hustle any idea he can (Coldstone Creamery but with donuts anyone?). They both want better lives; just don’t have any way to go about getting it. Ben has talent but no drive. Cam has drive but no clue. Ben works at Barney’s because he can’t sell his designs. Cam lives with his grandma because he doesn’t have a job.
How to Make it in America is a show that would only work on HBO. It’s grounded in every imaginable way. The characters (besides Cam whose presence is a bit over the top) are just regular people all striving for that success New York (or even America) has promised them. There’s Ben and Cam’s friend Ginger trying desperately to make a name for herself in the photography world without falling back on daddy’s money. David Kaplan, Ben’s uber-successful high school classmate who is willing to pay big bucks just to get into the best clubs and have the hottest girls. Even Cam’s violent, loan sharking cousin Rene, played by the always hilarious Luis Guzman, is a mobster carving out his own little niche after getting out of prison early. They all make for a nearly perfect dynamic that is largely representative of New York City as a whole.
Where Entourage (I will use the comparison often because it has the same feel and is Executive Produced by Mark Wahlberg and Co.) uses Los Angeles as just a backdrop, HTMIA uses the Big Apple as a character. The guys walk the streets, head to the docks for stolen leather jackets and rolls of unused denim, meet at art galleries where they go to help friends and drink the free booze, cut off other drivers, stand on street corners pushing stolen leather jackets, and generally exude a New York City demeanor without it seeming at all cliché. Where Entourage’s L.A. is a place we only see in the movies, HTMIA’s New York is a manic state of mind. And it works.
How to Make it in America has a chance to be a very, very good show. It is an artistic and well balanced look at what it means to succeed in an America very different from just a decade ago. Like Entourage, it is funny at just the right times without overdoing any particular joke. Unlike Vinnie Chase’s crew, these folks are more like us than any celebtiry. Guys, who with just a little spark (and some cash from a violent loan shark) are willing to buy some good denim at the docks, put it in a shopping cart, roll it through midtown and start working on making some good old American jeans.
Some other random thoughts on a fairly excellent series premiere:
- Marco the overly effeminate (but very straight) painter who cock blocks Ben from a late night hookup was a stroke of writing and acting genius.
- Excellent use of still shots, paintings and cut scenes interwoven in the episode. It gave the whole thing an artistic appeal different than almost any other show I’ve seen.
- Laugh out loud moment: Cam riding to Ben’s place on the pegs of a little Hasidic Jewish kid’s bike.
- One similarity between this and Entourage, and it might be the biggest connection, is the role of true friends in our lives. I’ll expand on this at some other time (as we get deeper into the show) but HTMIA is another great example of how friends can piss us off to no end, but we still are always loyal.
