Joey Soloway finds the comedy in families whose members expect understanding without offering much back. We value the close, untidy scenes most; the work grows less persuasive when it starts telling us what to think.
Fi1m perspective
In Transparent (2014), the handheld camera keeps edging towards the person with something to conceal. Daylight filters through the blinds of a house the Pfeffermans all want and none of them properly looks after. Their parent, Maura, is trying to tell her grown children that she is a woman, while they remain busy with themselves. We were moved by her efforts to be heard, because Jeffrey Tambor's careful performance makes each failure to listen hurt. Soloway's series earns our recommendation, though its children can be exhausting company.
The writing job on Six Feet Under (2001), which Soloway joined in 2002, provides a useful comparison. Under showrunner Alan Ball, that programme also made room for difficult relatives, with comedy that took grief seriously. Soloway's contribution was as a writer, and we would not credit them alone with the show's sharpness or blame them for its stretches of brooding. Writing and directing the debut feature Afternoon Delight (2013) marked a move towards greater control of the work. With Transparent, as creator, writer and director, Soloway could set the terms of a whole series.
Those terms are clearest in the way people talk over one another. Writers including Faith Soloway and Bridget Bedard keep the conversations unfinished, so that a family can be sharing a room without much being heard. Soloway directs several episodes and establishes the close, restless visual style; Andrea Arnold, So Yong Kim, Sarah Gavron and Marielle Heller also direct episodes. The intimacy works because the camera pays attention to the selfishness without requiring us to enjoy it. The risk is spending so long with these people that irritation begins to outweigh curiosity.
I Love Dick (2016), which Soloway co-created and directed, takes the interest in desire into questions of art and power. It also makes the weakness clear: Soloway can become too eager to teach. We prefer the untidy exchanges of Transparent, where people keep exposing more of themselves than they intend. Start there, and leave a little time between visits to the Pfeffermans.
Biography
Joey Soloway, also credited as Jill Soloway, is an American writer, director, producer and showrunner. Born on 26 September 1965 in Chicago, Illinois, Soloway graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and began their career in Chicago theatre, co-creating works such as The Real Live Brady Bunch with their sibling Faith Soloway.
Soloway wrote seven episodes of the HBO series Six Feet Under (2001–2005) and served as co-executive producer. They created, wrote and directed the Amazon series Transparent (2014–2019), for which they won two Primetime Emmy Awards, and wrote and directed the feature film Afternoon Delight (2013), which received the Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Other credits include writing on United States of Tara (2009) and How to Make It in America (2010), and creating I Love Dick (2016).
Soloway identifies as non-binary and gender non-conforming, and uses they/them pronouns. In 2020 they announced a name change from Jill to Joey.
