Salon.com > Mike White

Mike White to adapt novel by “Silver Linings Playbook” author

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:41:00 +0000

Mike White, who created the short-lived HBO show "Enlightened," lamented last month that “I’m afraid this [show] will be the best thing I ever do. I think it will be." HBO confirmed White's fears and canceled the show on Tuesday, to the dismay of its loyal fans.

However, White has just signed on with a promising project for Dreamworks: he'll be adapting "Silver Linings Playbook" author Matthew Quick's upcoming novel, "The Good Luck of Right Now" to film.

Variety reports:

The story follows the intertwined lives of four outsiders who, amid grieving over pain and loss in their lives, come together to form a most unlikely family. HarperCollins is planning to publish the book in spring 2014.

"Silver Linings Playbook" was adapted to film by David O. Russell and received eight Academy Award nominations, including best picture and best screenplay.

We shall no longer be “Enlightened”

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:44:00 +0000

HBO canceled Mike White’s “Enlightened” last night, opting not to pick up the show and Laura Dern's indelible Amy Jellicoe for a third season. Despite being singular and truly great — lyrical, searching, tough, thematically and tonally not like anything else on TV — the show never attracted much of an audience, a figure that HBO doesn’t always care about, but sometimes does. A little over 200,000 people watched each episode of “Enlightened.” For those of us who spend time in certain pop-culture-minded corners of the Internet, reading about TV, it seemed that despite this very paltry number, “Enlightened” was gaining momentum. Certainly Mike White was doing everything he could to make a third season happen. (Hope White’s doing OK. His interviews hustling for a show pickup were full of sweetness and so, so much anxiety: "I'm afraid this will be the best thing I ever do. I think it will be. That it might be over is sad.”) But it wasn’t enough.

“Enlightened” cancelled by HBO

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Amy Jellicoe's story ends here.

"Enlightened," the series created by "Year of the Dog" director Mike White, has been cancelled by HBO after two seasons. The series, about Amy (Laura Dern, who won a Golden Globe for the performance) struggling against a destructive corporate culture and her own demons, was something of a cause celebre for critics, in light of its low viewership by HBO standards and moody, melancholic tone.

Salon's Willa Paskin wrote after the season 2 finale, an accidental series finale of sorts: "[I]t’s sweet that 'Enlightened,' a show all about the cost of caring too much, should inspire such dedication." And, on Twitter, fans are calling for Netflix to intervene and provide a third season.

“Enlightened” makes us all into Amy Jellicoes

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 19:53:00 +0000

HBO’s “Enlightened” finished its second season last night, amid deep anxiety from its devoted admirers that the second season will also be the show's last. The series, created by Mike White and starring Laura Dern, is truly like nothing else on TV: Lyrical and unflinching, poetic and brutal, idealistic and incisive, gorgeous and painful, it is steadily, quietly up to something new. It has a searching thoughtfulness, an earnest interest about how one should be in the world, and how this can run afoul of how one is in the world. It is genuinely philosophical, which perhaps means it’s up to something old, something much older than TV anyway.

HBO, please renew “Enlightened”!

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:00:00 +0000

ENLIGHTENED — the television series co-created by Mike White and Laura Dern — opens with a scene of extreme disillusionment. Even prior to that first shot of Amy Jellicoe’s mascara-teared face, a close-up of which has become the show’s iconic image, the viewer senses that something is amiss. Just before we’re introduced to the face of our heroine, played by Dern, we’re aware of a sound. Someone is crying. Issuing from a blank screen, the crying already startles, but perhaps even more so because it’s a kind of irrepressible sobbing, verging on hysteria. Our reaction to the faceless weeping isn’t, and isn’t meant to be, one of sympathy or tenderness, but of disquiet, even fear. The disconnect lasts only seconds, as Amy’s contorted face floats into view. From there, Amy goes on a bridge-burning rampage through the office that — again, while lasting only minutes — becomes integral to how we will view the entire series. While most narratives proceed toward building connections, securing attachments, Enlightened begins by breaking them. During Amy’s path of detachment, however, the inverse was happening with me: I was falling in love with Enlightened.

Is “Enlightened” quietly the best show on TV?

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:48:00 +0000

The second season of "Enlightened" started recently, and if you haven’t yet discovered this show, it’s a real pleasure to fast-watch the first-season episodes and get up to speed. As a “comedy of alienation,” according to show writer Mike White, "Enlightened"is remarkably good, an insightful satire of the symbiotic relationship between the New Age self-actualization movement and the worker hell of corporate America.

The basic premise of "Enlightened" is an inspired one. A 40-something woman named Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern) has a sobbing, shrieking breakdown at her workplace, Abaddon Industries. The first shot of the pilot episode is of Amy’s tear- and mascara-streaked face, clownishly distorted by anguish. Betrayed by the married executive she’s been sleeping with and facing a demotion from the Health and Beauty Department to Cleaning Supplies, Amy stages a hysterical confrontation in the sleek corporate hallways. She chases her betrayer to the elevators and pries the elevator doors open with superhuman strength, wailing, “Health and Beauty was mine, Damon! Health and Beauty was mine.…”