Over the last 15 years or so, Joe Swanberg has been one of the more prolific and impressive directors to come out of the American independent cinema scene. This is due mostly to Swanberg's work ethic and ambitions as a filmmaker. At this year's SXSW, he delivered an inspiring speech about what it's like to live as a filmmaker who isn't working on big-studio projects but is directing personal, insightful, and intimate films on a regular basis. Last year, he put out the excellent Digging for Fire, and right before that he put out 24 Exposures, Happy Christmas, and Drinking Buddies, all of which received small-scale distribution deals.
With Easy, his eight-episode anthology series for Netflix, it's unclear if he's going to be reflecting on the working life of artists as he does in many of his movies. There's hints scattered about in the latest trailer for the series, which you can take a look at below, that he will touch on that subject matter but for the most part, he seems fascinating with relationships and sex. Mind you, these subjects are also pretty consistently brought up in his films as well. In Drinking Buddies, the setting of a craft-beer brewery in Chicago reflected Swanberg's own work but the glut of the movie focused on the frayed relationships, moments of infidelity, one night stands, and sexual desires that are shared between the employees and their partners. And from what the new trailer shows of Easy, there looks to be a similar interest in studying the uneasy rhythms of monogamy and commitment as well as the thrilling messiness of dating and infidelity.
Easy will premiere on Netflix on September 22nd.
Here's the new trailer for Easy:
Here's the official synopsis for Easy:
Easy is an anthology series from creator Joe Swanberg that explores diverse Chicago characters as they fumble through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture. The eight-episode series, written and directed by Swanberg, features Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman, Jake Johnson, Marc Maron, Dave Franco, Hannibal Buress, Emily Ratajkowski, Michael Chernus, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Aya Cash, Jane Adams, Elizabeth Reaser, Evan Jonigkeit, Aislinn Derbez, Mauricio Ochmann and more.
