Marta Kauffman's comedies make friendship feel worth the trouble. We rate her skill at building an ensemble, especially in Friends, but the closeness can become restrictive and the jokes sometimes need the cast's help.
Fi1m perspective
Jennifer Aniston makes embarrassment funny in Friends (1994), within a group whose members are allowed to rub one another up the wrong way. The six central performances make that closeness appealing without making it entirely comfortable. We laughed, and forgave some laboured writing, because Aniston made the discomfort so enjoyable. Kauffman's strength as a creator is to give us people whose company we want to keep, even when a particular joke has not earned its place.
Her partnership with David Crane runs through Dream On (1990), Friends and Veronica’s Closet (1997), so it would be misleading to treat this as one writer's work alone. Dream On used vintage footage; Friends made the tightly drawn group the attraction. The latter grew partly from Kauffman's own experience of friends functioning as family. That helps explain the programme's conviction about how much these people matter to one another. It also helps explain why the ensemble matters more here than any single character.
The problem is how little Friends seems to want from the world beyond those six people. A narrow focus can serve a sitcom, but here it can leave the writing short of fresh things to notice. There are stretches when the jokes feel forced and liking the characters becomes the main reason to continue. Our recommendation rests on the cast and the friction between them, not on the programme's account of adult life.
With Grace and Frankie (2015), co-created with Howard J. Morris, Kauffman turns her attention to two women in their seventies. Older women's friendships, work and sexuality become subjects for a continuing comedy. The familiar risk remains: dialogue can sound overworked, with broad sitcom humour sitting awkwardly beside more serious scenes. For an evening in agreeable company, start with Friends; do not expect much interest in anyone outside the central six.
Biography
Marta Kauffman is an American television writer and producer. She studied theatre at Brandeis University, graduating in 1978, where she met her frequent collaborator David Crane.
With Crane she co-created the series Dream On (1990) and Friends (1994), on which she also served as writer and executive producer. She later co-created Grace and Frankie (2015) with Howard J. Morris. Kauffman was married to composer Michael Skloff, who wrote the Friends theme song, from 1984 until their divorce in 2015.
