Summary
Shafted is surprisingly funny and oddly intriguing, taking a slapstick but sometimes poignant look at relationships and masculinity.
We’ve seen a lot of shows like Shafted, especially on platforms like Netflix. The French comedy series is a knockabout exploration of masculinity, especially the toxic kind, and the knock-on effect it has on the professional and personal lives of four middle-aged friends who are all simultaneously suffering from sudden changes in their lives. But I think that’s underselling things a bit. Shafted is both surprisingly funny and oddly thoughtful, refusing to take the easy side of the various relatable debates it throws up about relationships and how men and women conduct themselves.
It’s a bit overblown, to be fair, and can run the risk of feeling too slapstick to be taken seriously. But that’d be a mistake in my view. There are some pretty valuable observations here all told; about the grass not always being greener, about how personal ambition can lead us to overlook those closest to us, and about how there are so many different ways to live, to think, and to communicate that it’s incredibly restrictive just trying to settle on one.
The starting point of Shafted is four friends, Cédric (Manu Payet, Budapest), Tom (Antoine Gouy), Jérémie (Vincent Heneine), and Tonio (Guillaume Labbé), trying to embrace their masculinity after having it challenged by circumstances – one’s suffering from a break-up, another from losing their job, the third from erectile dysfunction, and the final one from their partner’s sudden desire for an open relationship. These four threads form distinct narrative tendrils that stretch out through the six half-hour-ish episodes and intermingle with each other, with the guys trying to fumblingly support each other while dealing – and often failing to deal – with their own personal crises.
But it’s wider-ranging than that. Shafted is smart not to villainize the women in the story, highlighting their perspectives and ambitions so we can see both sides of the equation. A mother with difficult children who feels unwanted and undervalued; a former model trying to rediscover herself through a new career; someone with a genuinely unique but nonetheless earnest idea of what love means and how it can shape a relationship. It’s about the guys, for sure, but the women aren’t neglected, and the men are not exclusively depicted as being right or justified. This, I think, is key.
The cast helps. The main four offer unique personalities and temperaments which help the dynamics to mesh, but the supporting cast is valuable too, especially an understated turn from Olga Kurylenko (Gun Shy; Mara; The Bay of Silence), somewhat implausibly playing the ex-model who keeps being told that she’s past it. I, for one, was surprised to see Kurylenko crop up in a small-scale French Netflix comedy that the streamer barely even bothered to advertise, but I’m glad she was there.
Ultimately Shafted offers nothing new, but I think that’s fine; it’s not trying to tread new ground but to find a safer path through the knotty brambles that tend to trip up a lot of comedies with things on their minds about relationships and masculinity. On that level, it’s an interesting and often genuinely amusing little series, one well worth seeking out for a laidback binge that just might give you a new way of thinking about something you thought you were settled on.
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