Nobody Wants This Review – Kristen Bell and Adam Brody's light-hearted romantic comedy is as funny as When Harry Met Sally | TV

THere were three really cute meet-cutes in my life as a viewer. One of them was when Harry met Sally (whatever he and she thought about it and about each other at the time. People!). The second was the dog-hurting half-length portrait of Colin from Accounts (you had to be there) two years ago. The third part is about Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Noah (Adam Brody) in the new Netflix comedy “Nobody Wants This”.

Let me tell you: Everyone wants this. It's the funniest, sweetest, hottest, most romantic, and real thing we've seen since Colin from Accounts. Bell plays a liberal woman in her thirties who hosts an increasingly successful podcast about sex and relationships with her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe) (latest episode – “Dildos and Dildos”). She is as agnostic and quasi-atheistic as the next non-Jew in their thirties. Brody plays a rabbi who has just broken up with his long-time girlfriend, who, along with both of their families, expected him to propose soon. Noah is a progressive rabbi, but one who still – “even though I’m playing up the Torah bad boy vibe” – is clear that he’s “fully into this.” He and Joanne meet at a party and the attraction is instant, mutual and increasingly difficult to resist. It's also the rarest thing – it's completely convincing to the audience.

Brody and Bell have worked together before and are friends in real life, which certainly helps, but there's something special and right about their on-screen chemistry – in the romantic scenes, of course, but more importantly and even more impactfully in the jokey, teasing conversations in between a joy to see. “Can you have sex?” she asks him as he walks her to her car. “Yes. They're priests. We're just normal people. And we're trying to repopulate a people, you know?” A little later she asks him: “Say something rabbinic.” He leans towards her… “Geiger up the roof.” “Don't be funny,” she replies. “It doesn't help.” At this point, I'm already willing to sacrifice my favorite pet to ensure that the two end up together. Bell and Brody are accomplished comedians in their own right and playwrights, but together they are more than the sum of their roles.

And they're surrounded by a fantastic supporting cast. First among equals is Lupe – as understatedly wonderful as Willa in Succession – as Joanna's more jaded sister and co-host. The fact that the two of them are battling a terrible dating world and their parents (“Dad's gay and Mom's still in love with him”) doesn't detract from their truth-telling and conflict in the slightest. “Joanne was a lesbian for a year,” Morgan tells potential podcast investors, sparking another row. “That’s where she really blossomed.” They would be excited to listen to her podcast.

Noah has a brother, Sasha (Timothy Simons, a bear of a man with the most deft comedic timing), who has all of Noah's warmth but less of his intellectualism and is happily married to his Jewish wife Esther – and just as happily terrorized by her (Jackie Tohn) and her children. Their deep, underlying marital harmony is portrayed as convincingly as any other part of the show. It's always refreshing to see a comedy that doesn't feel the need to denigrate the established situation just because its protagonists are still in the early stages, which are obviously more exciting.

Creator Erin Foster's obvious love and care for her characters, as well as the fact that the series was born from her own experience of falling in love as a non-Jew with a Jewish man (not a rabbi, but she converted for him), plus a script , which is steeped in awesomeness, means she can get away with jokes that might otherwise sail too close to the wind. A now almost traditional faux pas – the private text accidentally sent over the car's Bluetooth speaker, this time from Morgan to Joanne about how Noah doesn't look Jewish while Sasha is “brutal” – triggers an explosion of delighted comebacks brothers. “There are some very attractive Jews! Have you ever seen a young Mandy Patinkin?” “Doesn’t my brother look like he can control the media?” demands Sascha. “I apologize for my sister,” says Joanne, sitting in the passenger seat next to Morgan. “Who I have since cut off contact with.”

Underneath it all, the emotional stakes feel real. The couple's different cultures, the lack of faith over religion as a guiding force, the disapproval of families, possible ostracism, the possible impact on Noah's career, the restrictions on Joanne's freedom if she actually became a rabbi's wife – these are real ones Problems, obstacles fortunately without obvious answers. But I will be with them until the end, as I hope, will not be bitter. Just like my pets.