'Apples Never Fall': Alison Brie on Annette Bening's best roles

Four siblings look on as a woman speaks.

By Los Angeles Times Staff

March 22, 2024 12 PM PT

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who can’t get enough Annette.

Including her “Apples Never Fall” costar Alison Brie, who joins us this week to discuss Peacock’s new family mystery and names a Bening film her all-time favorite. Also in Screen Gab No. 124, editor Matt Brennan offers a defense of the underappreciated “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” plus recommendations for new projects by Frederick Wiseman and Cole Escola.

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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Chefs in white coats and toques surround a table during a meeting.

“Menu-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros” (PBS)

“Menu-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” the 44th movie by Frederick Wiseman, 94, the greatest documentary filmmaker of his times — not least because it’s his times he documents — gets an airing Friday on PBS and is available to stream from its website and app. Wiseman’s relationship with public television goes back decades. Institutions, process, creativity and states of being are his favored subjects, and as his wont, the film runs long — four hours — yet not a minute too long. He gives the viewer time to soak in a scene, follow a conversation and focus, looking and listening even more carefully than one does in life. (It’s also one of several Wiseman films on French culture, following works on La Comédie-Française, the Paris Opera Ballet and the Crazy Horse nightclub.) Here, we are camped out in the restaurants of the Troisgros family in central France, including the three-Michelin-starred Le Bois Sans Feuilles, and also with their suppliers. Nonjudgmental, offered without extraneous commentary, beautifully shot and edited with a morning to evening arc, “Menu-Plaisirs” is a tonic to the hyperactive run of TV food shows, fictional or non; the kitchens are quiet, the chefs are calm. — Robert Lloyd

Cole Escola leans against a concrete and chain-link fenced wall.

“Our Home Out West” (YouTube)

The hottest ticket in New York theater right now is “Oh Mary,” an off-Broadway show in which Cole Escola reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a vain airhead with one hell of a drinking problem and an unrequited dream of becoming a cabaret star . The one-act play, which was written by Escola, co-stars Conrad Ricamora as “Mary’s Husband,” a.k.a. Abraham Lincoln, and follows the couple in the weeks leading up to their fateful date night at Ford’s Theatre. “Oh Mary” is an outrageous, campy spectacle, one that’s gleefully unconcerned with historical accuracy and serves as an ideal showcase for Escola’s twisted brilliance.

But for anyone who can’t make it to the Lucile Lortel Theater between now and May — which is most of us — Escola also recently created “Our Home Out West,” a half-hour holiday special available to stream on YouTube. Billed as “the lost pilot episode of a heartwarming family western that aired once on Christmas Eve of 1971, never to be seen again,” it follows Fifi (Escola) the kind-hearted proprietor of a brothel/saloon in Pit City, Colo., who takes an orphaned young boy under her wing. (The nonbinary actor plays numerous other roles in the special, including the town preacher. Their co-stars include Aidy Bryant and Amy Sedaris.) Even though it includes at least one joke about felching, the special perfectly captures the wholesome kitsch of American network TV in the 1970s like “Little House on the Prairie” and “The Waltons.” It is, like most of what Escola does, simultaneously silly, raunchy and strangely moving. Escola completists can also check out their other specials, “Pee Pee Manor” and “Help! I’m Stuck!” —Meredith Blake

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Everything you need to know about the film or TV series everyone’s talking about

A man reclines on a gravestone, looking up at the sky.

Much like its predecessor, “Feud: Bette and Joan,” or even “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” (FX, Hulu) suffers from the expectations set by its title. You are no more likely to find in it a lip-smacking battle royale between the gadfly writer of “Answered Prayers” and the New York socialites he took as his subject than you were, in those other series, an Old Hollywood cat fight or the chronicle of a fashion designer’s final days. (With a cavalcade of roughly sketched characters and more multi-directional time jumps than “Doctor Who,” you won’t find much in the way of a coherent narrative arc, either.) And yet, though it may whine and creak like its protagonist’s vodka-pickled voice, this “Feud” mounts an extraordinarily perceptive portrait of a world, and its people, slipping into irrelevance.

For Capote (Tom Hollander), Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockart), Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald) and the other birds in their orbit, black-and-white balls, trusted haberdashers and the “right” Chardonnay are levers of power in a culture that would otherwise deny them access to it, and writer-executive producer Jon Robin Baitz and director Gus Van Sant depict the waning of such distinctions with a heady mix of acrid humor and genuine pathos. (At least one sequence, in which Babe wordlessly steps into her usual finery only to undress again, in the next moment, for radiation treatment, took my breath away.) Indeed, despite its name, “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” understands that the squabbles among its characters are simply skirmishes in a larger war — and that all, in the end, were ultimately on the same side. The losing one. — Matt Brennan

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A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

A woman stands pensively on a balcony overlooking the water.

Alison Brie’s latest project comes with something of a bonus: The chance to appear alongside one of her idols, and the star of her all-time favorite movie, Annette Bening. In “Apples Never Fall” (Peacock), based on the novel by Liane Moriarty (“Big Little Lies,” “Nine Perfect Strangers,” Brie plays Amy, one of four adult siblings who come to see their parents (Bening and Sam Neill) in a new light when their mother disappears shortly after her retirement from the family tennis academy. Brie stopped by Screen Gab recently to talk about Bening, our cultural fascination with adult siblings and what she’s watching. — Matt Brennan

What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?

“Mr. & Mrs. Smith” [Prime Video]. I loved it so much. Incredible performances by Donald Glover and Maya Erskine. Really cool score. Very sexy and unique.

What is your go-to “comfort watch,” movie or TV show you go back to again and again?

Well, there are two. “The American President” [VOD, multiple platforms], starring Annette Bening and Michael Douglas, is my favorite movie of all time. I’ve probably watched it 100 times. I’ll still put that on when I need a bit of comfort, and if I’m channel surfing and it happens to be, on I will ALWAYS watch it. Also, “Sex and the City” [Max] — the original series. Especially seasons 3 and 4. When I’m away shooting on location, I always find myself coming back to this show. I just like to have it on while I look over lines or get ready for bed. I’ve seen it so much I really know all the episodes by heart.

“Apples Never Fall” delves into the relationship among adult siblings — a through line in several of the most acclaimed shows on TV in recent years, from “Succession” to “This Is Us.” What is it about the adult sibling bond that is most fascinating to you?

What interests me is the relationship between adult children and their parents. And the ways in which adult siblings carry wounds from their childhood forever, constantly analyzing and dissecting their experiences as they gain perspective with age. In my experience, your sibling is the only person who can really be a part of this analysis because they share all the same memories. And what’s more fascinating is how we can have differing memories and feelings about our parents and still take shelter in the bond with our siblings because at least we all bore witness to the same events. I love the complicated nature of the adult sibling relationship and how deep the connection can be, even when siblings disagree.

Annette Bening, who plays your mother in the series, is coming off her fifth Oscar nomination. What’s your favorite Bening performance and why?

So of course “The American President” comes to mind. She is absolutely magnetic in that movie. But I also think about her performances in “American Beauty” [Prime Video] and “The Kids Are Alright” [Pluto TV]. Both master classes in deep character work. She is totally transformed, totally truthful and totally heartbreaking in those films, in different and specific ways. All of her work has served as a huge inspiration to me as an actor.

‘Apples Never Fall’: Alison Brie picks her three favorite Annette Bening performances

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