Joel Zwick specialises in the practical business of getting an ensemble comedy to work. We respect the timing and the handling of actors, but Two and a Half Men makes the limits of that competence plain.
Fi1m perspective
Jon Cryer gets laughs out of Two and a Half Men (2003), even when the programme settles for the most predictable joke. We laughed at his performance, then grew weary of the writing's sour treatment of women. Zwick directed for the series, and we would not lay its entire outlook at his door. But it is a useful place to begin assessing a comedy director: capable actors can only do so much with material that keeps taking the easy option.
His work in family sitcoms gives a clearer sense of his particular skills. After experimental theatre, he moved into television in 1977, bringing experience with large casts and child actors to multi-camera comedy. He directed pilots for Perfect Strangers (1986) and Full House (1987), helping to establish programmes built around comic timing and character interplay. His repeated work with producer Garry Marshall belongs to this television career, in which getting a group of performers working together matters more than drawing attention to the direction.
His feature debut, Second Sight (1989), was poorly received, and the breakthrough came with My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). The latter's reputation for amiability fits the family television work, though the reservations about formula and ethnic stereotypes deserve attention too. We would approach it as an amiable comedy, with that caveat about the writing, rather than as evidence that he had become a different sort of director. It is the sensible starting point for his films.
In Two and a Half Men, the supporting cast joins Cryer in earning laughs, but we found sustained viewing a chore. That limits our enthusiasm for the programme without cancelling the skill involved in handling its performers. Zwick's record of launching series through pilots gives us reason to value his ability to establish an ensemble, while remaining cautious about attributing every successful joke to him. We would look first to the family sitcoms for that work; with Two and a Half Men, we would stop well short of making a night of it.
Biography
Joel Zwick is an American film, television and theatre director. Born on 11 January 1942 in Brooklyn, New York, he was educated at Brooklyn College.
He is known for directing episodes of the television series Perfect Strangers, Full House (1987–1995), Family Matters (1989–1998) and Two and a Half Men (2003), as well as the films My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) and Fat Albert (2004). Zwick has directed twenty-one television pilots that became weekly series.
