Kate Berlant and John Early made a horror movie about being desperate in LA, and it's funnier than it has any right to be.
12 minSeason 1 • Episode 5
LatestFrom the minds of Kate Berlant, John Early and Andrew DeYoung, 555 is an anthology miniseries of five short films that unfold in a stark, humid, surreality of Hollywood. These short, cinematic fairy tales are set in tinsel town, where status is everything and the stakes are high. The backdrop is big dreams, and in the foreground, the humiliations of clawing one’s way toward them. Each episode focuses on a fraught relationship between two characters, where ambition prevails over empathy. Among the wildly varied characters: a young Mama Rose type and her mute child, two sensual but ignorant acting students, an agent turned artist by tragedy and his partner who must watch his grotesque fall. Each episode zooms in on characters toiling in different corners of a Hollywood hellscape. Will greed, egotism, ignorance and desire consume them? Or can they escape dark fates by clinging to rare moments of tenderness?
Acting
Berlant and Early shape-shift through five toxic duos.
Production
That humid, overlit LA dread is practically its own character.
Writing
Dialogue so precise it hurts to laugh.
Creator
Andrew DeYoung
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Berlant and Early developed 555 from their live show 'March' and shot all five episodes in four days on borrowed locations.
The Mama Rose episode directly riffs on Gypsy while the acting class duo channels the Method extremism of the 2010s indie scene.
US
