Netflix Series Review: THE KOMINSKY METHOD

Douglas and Arkin, old friends on park bench, with bonsai.

Simply put, this offering from Netflix is perfect in every way. The Kominsky Method stars Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, two seasoned actors who just keep getting better at their game as they age. It's delicious watching them bicker and banter as old friends clinging to one another in their golden years, awaiting the Grim Reaper with wry humor and a couple of stiff drinks. Adding to their impressive talents is a script (by veteran sitcom writer Chuck Lorre) worthy of reading in book form -- about life, love, parenthood, aging and the inevitability of death. It's partly serious, mostly hilarious, and all so relatable.

Douglas plays Sandy Kominsky, an actor whose career went downhill after the Tony Award he received in his youth. Now in his mid-70s, he ekes out a decent living as a coach for a group of engaging young actors in downtown LA. Arkin is his best friend, Norman Newlander, a fabulously successful and very rich (there's a Hockney hanging in his dining room) talent agent several years older. Norman is basically retired, living large off his established agency's earnings without lifting a finger. 

Also on hand are their two grown children: Sandy's daughter Mindy (Sarah Baker) who manages his acting school, and Norman's daughter Phoebe (Lisa Edelstein), a drugged-out alcoholic who goes from one rehab to another, sober until her next beer.

Various new girlfriends, dead wives, ex-wives and a boyfriend appear from time to time, staying for a season or two. Several of these are notable: Jane Seymour as an old flame of Norman's that gets rekindled, and Kathleen Turner as Sandy's ex-wife who shows up to attend Mindy's wedding to a tubby, pony-tailed hippie 30 years her senior (Paul Reiser). And finally, what movie, stage production, TV show or inane commercial doesn't have Morgan Freeman in it? (Not this one.)

Despite all the show's obvious charms, ultimately you'll stay for Douglas, who has gradually morphed into our greatest living actor. Sadly the series runs for just three seasons, but there's no law against watching it over and over again.