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On the face of it, there’s little in common between the Trump presidency and Covid — besides, of course, the 18-month period where hell itself froze over and the two briefly overlapped. But if you think about it, has there been another topic that has provided more fodder to comedians in the last few years than the 45th POTUS and the pandemic? In his fourth Netflix standup special — titled We All Scream — Patton Oswalt does an admirable job of avoiding both subjects, at least directly. He does, however, unpack the trauma that they’ve left behind.
Addressing the unexpected social divide that they created, however, is perhaps as edgy as he’s willing to get in We All Scream — an hour-long special in which the comedian transitions from harmless jokes about growing old to an electric riff about post-war American history. And somehow, in typical Oswalt fashion, he manages to draw parallels between both, segueing from a bit about breaking his foot while stepping over a curb to delivering an insightful sermon of sorts on the collective societal insecurity that leads to people like Reagan and Trump being elected into office.
Oswalt has always relied on his ability to narrate vividly descriptive personal stories that border on the absurd, and despite the regular jokes about how old he has become, the comedian always appears to be on his toes — at least as far as his skills as a raconteur are concerned. At one point, he compares his wife to ‘an outer space sex vixen’ with murder in her eyes, and on another occasion, he pitches a possible Pixar movie featuring household appliances for the Safdie Brothers to direct.
These are perhaps the only two moments in which he reveals his inner nerd — a persona that would often rear its head in his earlier specials. But over the years, Oswalt’s observations about the world have changed. His stage presence is still manic (despite the scary surgery and the broken foot), but his commentary isn’t as cartoonish as it used to be. We All Screams ends with some of the most reflective material of his career. And the bit is laced with his trademark self-deprecation and a genuine sense of gratitude. “Ageing isn’t bad if you don’t take it personally,” he muses, alternating between casual criticism of masculinity and performing a quick autopsy of the Trump years.
Here’s a man who has experienced real, tangible grief in his life. But he’s also someone who overcame it. He persevered, and somehow didn’t allow himself to be corrupted by fame or become embittered by loss.
This is the kind of maturity that empowers a comedian to set up a joke directed at Joe Rogan — an easy target, by any standard — and then swerve away so drastically that you begin to wonder why he even brought him up. Until he tells you why. Not only does Oswalt refuse to pile on Rogan, he argues that people should consider empathising with the podcast mogul. And almost as if to emphasise his point, he makes himself the butt of the joke. It’s a deft bait-and-switch; a terrific bit of comic subversion.
But the special isn’t uniformly sharp, and that’s probably a side-effect of the various forms that Oswalt attempts during the hour. An early bit about clown pubes (sigh, yes) bombs — he acknowledges this, by the way — and leaves him scrambling to win the audience back. Which he does, of course, well before some cracking crowd-work towards the end.
We All Scream has that familiar yelling-into-a-void energy that Oswalt always seems to be surrounded by, but this time, he knows he isn’t alone.
Patton Oswalt: We All Scream
Director – Patton Oswalt
Rating – 3.5/5
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