We are all the narrators of our stories. The difficulty is figuring out how to tell them. Do we make ourselves blameless protagonists or complex characters whose choices \u2014 both good and bad \u2014 create our problems? Do we fight to control our narrative or give it away to others who may get it wrong and make a damaging misinterpretation that leads to harmful, real-world consequences? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
These are the themes Rufi Thorpe explores in her 2024 novel \u201cMargo\u2019s Got Money Troubles\u201d that Apple TV+ has adapted into a series. The first three episodes dropped this week. The show sticks closely to the source material, which is about Margo, a 19-year-old who has a brief affair with her English professor, gets pregnant and sets up an OnlyFans account to support her baby. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Even though the novel tackles well-trod topics like the double standards of gender as it relates to sex and parenthood, it feels fresh because of its unique narrative style and the way it weaves together Margo\u2019s interior life as a burgeoning writer with her real-world experiences as a new mother and OnlyFans creator. The same is true of its adaptation, starring Elle Fanning as Margo; Michelle Pfeiffer as her mother, Shayanne; and Nick Offerman as her dad, Jinx. However, while Margo\u2019s voice is the show\u2019s strength, it\u2019s also the root of the show\u2019s main shortcoming, because the story is broken up into eight episodes that rely too heavily on Margo\u2019s perspective to be the through line that ties them together. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The first episode begins with Margo\u2019s voiceover. She is narrating her origin story for her freshman English class. Immediately, the show, like the novel, shows her trying to make sense of her life through her writing. This essay attracts the attention of her married English professor, Mark (Michael Angarano), who asks her for coffee. That coffee turns into sex, and that sex turns into him writing her poetry in which he refers to her as a \u201chungry ghost,\u201d the name Margo eventually claims for her OnlyFans profile. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In the opening pages of the book, before the affair begins, Mark espouses to Margo\u2019s class that a \u201cmain character is not a real person\u201d and that\u2019s \u201cwhy the reader falls for them.\u201d This line is quoted in the show when Margo is talking to her best friend from high school over FaceTime. Her friend says the situation with the professor is ironic because Margo is falling for someone \u201cwho is equally unreal\u201d and he is just a character in a book to her and she to him. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/div>\nThis question of how real anyone can be to anyone else if everyone is just playing a character is the question at the core of this show. It is also an apt one to pose for Margo because she is externally defined by the roles of lover, mother and creator and faces judgment for the way she embodies all of them. This becomes most apparent when her alien-themed OnlyFans account becomes more popular, and Fanning\u2019s acting range shines with the ups and downs of Margo\u2019s journey from analytical undergrad to blithe lover to overwhelmed mother to confident creator. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The underlying question of authenticity is also woven into the storylines of Margo\u2019s never-married parents, whose subplots drive a significant portion of the show. Shayanne, a former Hooters waitress and current Bloomingdale\u2019s employee, becomes a sober, churchgoing, choir-singing caricature to appeal to Kenny (Greg Kinnear), an Episcopalian who falls in love with the idea of her but not her. Pfeiffer plays Margo\u2019s mother perfectly, eliciting sympathy and creating chaos simultaneously. Offerman\u2019s casting is also a great fit for Jinx, a former professional wrestler who is a newly rehabilitated drug addict. When Jinx shows up at Margo\u2019s apartment and asks to move in, he is trying to leave behind the version of himself that he created in the ring to be a present father and grandfather, but he doesn\u2019t know if he exists outside of that persona. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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