At the heart of almost every character and action in The resort is a variation on the same question: what’s the point? Should an inactive doodle have a period? What about a cryptic, vaguely sinister-looking mural? What’s the point of a mystery if there are no answers? What is the use of life, with all its tragedies and disappointments, or is life itself the meaning of life, since every moment is the result of every moment that preceded it?
Inevitably, this search for meaning circles around what is arguably the biggest question, at least in this particular context: what’s the point of The resort?
It comes down to
A journey that starts strong but gets lost in its own jungle.
As a mystery they are not great shakes. The twisted plot starts off strong before getting lost in the weeds, eventually arriving at a destination barely worth the eight-episode trek it took to get there. But as an atmosphere it’s a strangely immersive – a bit The white lotusa little Only murders in the buildinga little Palm Springs (the last of which was written by The resort creator Andy Siara). Just don’t expect the other side to come up with coherent answers to the central narrative questions, let alone to the existential malaise that torments you.
In an echo of last summer’s mini-trend of tropical onions turned sour, The resort unfolds over a holiday that only looks beautiful on the surface, while it simmers with misery beneath. In 2022, Noah (William Jackson Harper) and Emma (Cristin Milioti) arrive at the Bahía del Paraíso resort in Mexico, ostensibly to celebrate their tenth anniversary — though Emma’s sour expression makes it clear that it’s been a while since she felt that their marriage was all worth celebrating. And that’s before we see her drinking in the pool alone at night, Googling “How do I know if I should end my relationship?”
However, just as the journey begins to seem irreparable, Emma discovers an old cell phone that turns out to belong to Sam (Skyler Gisondo) – one of two young American tourists, along with Violet (Nina Bloomgarden), who is from nearby, now on the run. defunct Oceana Vista resort 15 years ago. Solving the case becomes Emma’s immediate, all-consuming obsession, with Noah along for the ride less because he’s addicted too than because he can see that this puzzle is the one thing that seems to bring Emma more to life. (He does enjoy it though — in one of the funniest scenes of the series, the pair are simultaneously excited and shocked by what they initially assume are extremely perverted texts between Sam and Violet.)
But as another character warns, in one of The resort‘s exaggerated meta-lines: “What happened to Sam and Violet is just one thread in a tapestry of interconnected stories.” The series swings between the timeline of Noah and Emma and that of Sam and Violet, with occasional detours through the backstories of other characters such as Baltasar (Luis Gerardo Méndez), the wannabe detective head of the Oceana Vista, and Alex ( Ben Sinclair, who also directed the first few episodes), eccentric owner of the Oceana Vista.
Some are downright tragic (Violet, we learn, mourned her mother’s death a year earlier), others are pleasantly crazy (Baltasar recounts his childhood feud with a famous author, played on increasingly hostile letters). At best, the layered story structure sheds new light on each arc – the resentment raging between Noah and Emma is extra poignant in contrast to, say, the vertigo of Violet and Sam’s young courtship. But with each half-hour episode, more and more things are added, some less obviously relevant than others, The resort eventually collapses under its weight.
Noah and Emma’s quest for answers reveals that Sam and Violet were on their own quixotic quest in 2007, expanding with a potentially mystical illness, a series of decapitated iguanas, a powerful fashion dynasty, and a book that may hold the key to – well, it’s not clear what exactly, just that many of the characters seem to believe it will free them from the crushing weight of a meaningless existence. The tone shifts between playful and desperate and slightly romantic, so it’s sometimes hard to tell whether we should be sympathetic to a character’s actions or if we’re uncomfortable with it. Shaggy-dog stories may have their appeal, but The resort runs in circles in the jungle for so long that it struggles to find its way back out.
Fortunately, while his ideas threaten to come out of this world, The resort is not simply grounded pleasures. Milioti and Harper share the attractive lived-in chemistry of people who really knew and loved each other, even when neither artist strays that far from their wheelhouse; among Palm Springs, Made for love and the right place, these two are actually the names for love stories with a twist. Nick Offerman delivers arguably the series’ most quietly heartbreaking performance as Violet’s grieving father. Gabriela Cartol, so fantastic in the 2018 movie the chambermaidis underused here, but brings a much-needed pragmatism when it appears.
The brightest of them all is Méndez, who begins the series as a menacing figure before gradually revealing weirder, sweeter levels. He sells the series’ most questionable lines (“I’m tired of being attacked by symbols!” he shouts at one point, which would be a real moan were it not for his hilariously annoyed episode), and comes emerged as the most magnetic, dynamic character. The resort never quite delivers on the full promise of its talent and concept, but the cast alone makes it easy to click through to the next episode.
In spite of everything, the tragedies that drive these people remain painfully common: the loss of a loved one, the disappointment of aging, the oppressive weight of a family legacy. These are characters desperate for more or less time, eager to go back to happier days or move on to find out what’s already happening. The one thing they almost all seem to agree on is that the here and now is unbearable. In this sense, the emotions of The resort can be eminently recognizable, depending on your mood. But when it comes to providing some clarity, the series is no more imminent than the messy big world it sets out to interrogate. It takes his time to wander into the unknown, his questions gradually become less coherent. In the end, it only finds more questions.