Synopsis: The owner of a Paris jazz club gets tangled up with dangerous criminals as he fights to protect his business, his band, and his teenage daughter.
Format: Eight episodes — on Netflix from May 8.
Cast: André Holland, Amandla Stenberg, Joanna Kulig, Leïla Bekhti, Tahar Rahim, Adil Dehbi, Benjamin Biolay, Tchéky Karyo, Randy Kerber, Jowee Omicil, Ludovic Louis, Damian Nueva, Lada Obradovic
Directors: Damien Chazelle (episodes 1–2), Houda Benyamina (episodes 3–4), Laïla Marrakchi (episodes 5–6), Alan Poul (episodes 7–8)
Writer: Jack Thorne
The world-famous Eiffel Tower is glimpsed once in Netflix’s new series, The Eddy. It takes place in and around Paris but very purposely shifts the focus away from the city’s romanticised image. Paris, je t’aime this is not. Instead, The Eddy introduces grounded, layered individuals living in Paris’s rougher neighbourhoods where graffiti skids along walkways and the glitz and glam you expect from mainstream cinema are gone.
At the centre of the show is The Eddy itself, a jazz club where a band called The Eddy plays, run by two figureheads: Elliot (André Holland), who handles the music and band with a sour, serious grip; and Farid (Tahar Rahim), who oversees the business side with an exuberant love for life. Farid has less care for the perfectionist inside Elliot when it comes to the band’s music and performance, but you quickly get an understanding of their relationship in the first episode — even if you do wonder how these two seemingly polar opposites became business partners.
The Eddy introduces a large cast quickly. Many get their own narratives slowly unravelled as the series progresses, but Elliot is where the main thread is spun through the first season.
In the first episode, we learn that Farid is unfortunately not as great at handling the money side of the business and has gotten mixed up with criminals in an attempt to keep the club going. Allowing drugs to be sold inside for a cut is just the start of the pile of bad decisions Farid has made. Elliot is pushed into solving this problem — even if it’s not what his day-to-day normally entails — and is quickly wrapped up in a plot involving the Ukrainian mob and a thrilling twist of events that has him racing against the clock to save his club from destruction.
Elliot’s normal day consists of writing music for The Eddy and meticulously — and aggressively — moulding the band into playing and singing his material better. The band lets him, because Elliot Udo was once a famed jazz musician himself, though he now refuses to play — for reasons explored as the season progresses.
The person who cops the most fire from Elliot’s rage is Maja (Joanna Kulig), the lead vocalist for The Eddy — who has also recently broken up with Elliot. It’s a seemingly toxic relationship from the get-go and within the first couple of episodes it’s hard not to wonder why anyone sticks around Elliot as he berates everyone. The man is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Of course, there’s more to Elliot, and the reasons that drive his aggression make him all the more intriguing to watch as the season heads toward its end.
Elliot’s daughter, Julie (Amandla Stenberg), arrives in Paris direct from New York, where she had been living with her mother. There’s a story to that. Julie is headstrong, with little care for schooling, and quickly begins ditching classes — adding to Elliot’s ever-buckling shoulders. When she meets Sim (Adil Dehbi) she finds someone to grab onto in Paris. Their romance doesn’t fall into the magical Hollywood splendour of Paris either, so don’t be fooled — no late-night conversations as fireworks explode over the Arc de Triomphe. Julie is just as headstrong as her father and equally explosive when she wants to be.
The Eddy is written by Jack Thorne, whose work on Skins and This Is England is most noticeable here. He weaves teen romance, melodrama and crime-story elements with ease. Each episode begins with a subtitle naming the character focus — very Skins. What’s new for Thorne here is the music, and The Eddy contains a lot of it — to the point it may become too much for anyone who can’t stand jazz.
Damien Chazelle directs the first two episodes and, although his whimsical, magical style from La La Land is not on show here, his ability to capture the aggressive story that music can tell absolutely is. The Eddy is more in line with Whiplash, and the camera work in the opening hours captures the frenetic energy of live performance.
All the music in The Eddy was captured live on set, with the actors playing their instruments, which makes for a much more engaging experience. It lets Chazelle introduce us to the club with a several-minute one-shot that brings the show to life with an almost documentarian feeling.
Throughout The Eddy, the music is shown in full — as band rehearsals unfold or as characters mull over their feelings while playing. On several occasions where a traditional score might be inserted to underline the emotion, it’s the music they’re playing themselves that becomes your guide.
With such fantastic original songs by Glen Ballard, it’s hard to fault The Eddy for not cutting any musical moments — though I can see them being a sticking point for some.
Following Chazelle are directors Houda Benyamina, Laïla Marrakchi and Alan Poul. Chazelle’s first two episodes set the tone: bravura musical performances and a focus on feeling rather than over-explaining.
The Eddy is beautifully shot and directed, with a gritty, realistic lens on its characters and setting. At the heart of it all is an undeniable love for the people and the music. The performances are uniformly strong, but I’ll be surprised if most don’t leave in love with Tahar Rahim and Leïla Bekhti, who plays his wife, Amira. They’re married in real life, and their on-screen chemistry brings something special to this story. It’s impossible to talk about Amira without spoilers, but she’s a strong character with a heart of gold — my favourite in the show.
Somehow the music and mob elements of The Eddy come together. On paper, they sound almost comical; if I told you how the first episode ended, you’d ask if this series was a weird parody. It’s an enigma — but I was completely engaged for all eight episodes. I came out the other end in love with the music, the characters, and this vision of Paris The Eddy introduced me to. I want a second season, and I hope Netflix announces it shortly after the first drops.
Advance screeners provided for review
