THE FIXATE & BINGE PODCAST, with Host, Joe Curdy: Deep dives into cinema and storytelling with voices who create it · Joe Curdy

Arrested Development in Hawaiʻi: Talking CHAPERONE (2024) with writer/director Zoë Eisenberg & star Mitzi Akaha

·52 min·4 clips

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Joe opens with a post-Thanksgiving check-in and a grateful welcome back to Fixate and Binge. He jokes about turkey, mashed potatoes, and feeling like gravy before shifting into the week’s movie-and-TV conversation. The main focus is the film at hand, with Joe and his guests talking through its backdrop, its emotional tension, and the push and pull around what Misha is willing to admit. The conversation keeps circling Misha’s moral center. The filmmaker explains that the character had to come across as someone with a real conscience, even when early readers found her hard to root for. Mitzi’s performance is what changes that on screen. Joe and the guests spend time on chemistry, including Laird’s physical presence, the sense that he can look after someone, and the fatherly quality he carries in the film. The script stage gets attention too. The filmmaker describes how the story drew more resistance before people could see the performance, because the character’s conflict lands differently once Mitzi is playing it. The episode does not shy away from alienation. The filmmaker says some readers, especially men, thought the protagonist did not want enough and did not give them a reason to care, while women connected more quickly to the material. Joe keeps the tone conversational throughout. He lets the discussion move through desire, hesitation, and judgment without smoothing off the awkward parts. The episode still feels like a review as much as an interview. That makes it sound less like a polished promo stop and more like a host thinking out loud with filmmakers who know exactly where the hard edges are. The talk keeps returning to tension. The filmmaker describes the constant question of whether Misha will tell him now or keep delaying it. She also points out how much the performance does to reveal that struggle on a human face. The film’s reception comes up again as a contrast between page and screen. Joe and the guests make it clear that the movie’s shape depends on the audience being willing to sit with a lead who is conflicted before she becomes sympathetic. The closing stretch stays with that idea. The film works because the character’s messiness is not hidden, and the performance gives the audience a way in before judgment hardens. By the end, the conversation has settled on the film’s real appeal: a morally complicated lead, a strong chemistry read, and a story that becomes clearer once someone actually performs it.

As heard by us

A post-Thanksgiving film conversation that moves from script resistance to a more human read on Misha.

Joe frames this Fixate and Binge installment as a post-Thanksgiving hangout before the discussion settles around a film focused on Misha and Laird.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Hear a film conversation unpacking a morally tricky lead and the gap between the page and the screen.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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