Living with Yourself review: Paul Rudd bites off more than he can chew in Netflix’s high-concept comedy

The new comedy is the latest in a string of shows that uses ideas from sci-fi and fantasy to explore ennui in middle-class professionals

How much Paul Rudd is too much Paul Rudd? It’s not a question I’d pondered before Living with Yourself, Netflix’s new eight-part high-concept sort-of comedy. He is always such an easy presence, unobtrusively sharing the screen with brasher personalities and perfecting his nice-guy routine, in Clueless or Friends or Anchorman or I Love You, Man. Whether he’s taking centre stage in Ant-Man, or subduing his comic talents to bring middle-age gravitas to a Judd Apatow film, he’s always charming and likeable, managing to occupy the space without ever dominating it.

Now, for the first time, I wonder if there is too much Rudd. He plays Miles, a depressed advertising executive going through an early-midlife crisis. He punches lightbulbs in frustration, slouches through work, and sulks at his Irish wife Kate (Aisling Bea, who is having a moment).

Sensing Miles’s listlessness, a colleague tells him about a spa with mysterious powers of reinvigoration. Draining his savings, Miles signs up and undergoes an obscure procedure. The result is a peppier, perkier clone of himself, Miles 2.0 (also played by Rudd), a delight at dinner parties and inspirational at work.

The problem is that only one of them was meant to survive the treatment. Old, hangdog Miles wakes up in a shallow grave, wrapped in clingfilm, gasping for air. Startled, he sets off home, where he confronts the improved version of himself, which doesn’t help his confusion. After a brief exchange, they establish which Miles is the real Miles, and which the clone, and establish some rules. Much of the comedy comes from these interactions, the banter between beaming, shiny new Miles and sad, redundant Miles. While Miles 2.0 might remind Kate of the man she married, only original Miles is allowed to reap the bedroom benefits.

The nihilism of Black Mirror casts a long shadow, but it is not the only recent series that uses concepts from sci-fi or fantasy to explore ennui in middle-class professionals. In Russian Doll, Natasha Lyonne’s character relived her 36th birthday until she made better decisions. Maniac, with Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, looked at the power of a pharmaceutical trial. In The Good Place, the allusions are biblical. In each, the lead characters are presented with alternate possibilities for themselves at a moment in their lives where many of the paths have been closed. The predicament is relatable: what is the internet if not a temple of aspiration and distraction? Netflix itself is a part of it. The abundance of imagery is paralysing. Led to believe we could be better if only we did x or y, we do nothing, and nothing changes.

Living with Yourself is lighter than the other examples, takes a few episodes to warm up, and improves by the end of the series. But it never recovers enough to live up to the promise of its premise. Like Miles, Rudd bites off more than even he can chew.

Living with Yourself begins on Netflix on Friday 18 October