The Riches Comes to DVD at Last!
The First Season of an Edgy New Dramedy is Released on DVD
A darkly comic drama staring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as a husband and wife con-artist couple who attempt their biggest scam yet in a wealthy suburb
Viewers who missed The Riches in its first run on FX have another chance to see this remarkable series with the release of Season One on DVD. The show, which stars British comedian Eddie Izzard and actress Minnie Driver, is a hilarious and savage critique of the American dream.
The show, originally entitled Low Life by its creator Dmitri Lipkin, is also a close examination of family life, friendship, and forgiveness -- in other words, the nature of love.
Izzard plays Wayne Malloy, an Irish Traveler from the southern U.S. who makes his living as a con man. As the series opens, he and his three children -- Di Di, Cael and Sam -- are about to be reunited with Wayne's wife. Dahlia is being paroled after two years in prison for fraud, but the reunion is far from perfect, especially since Dahlia's incarceration was Wayne's fault.
Wayne's inability to play well with others soon lands them all in deep trouble. Within hours of Dahlia's release, he has offended the leader of their tribe and made off with a large sum of money. The chance of escape seems slim, until an unlikely opportunity falls into their lap, in the form of a pair of newlyweds named Doug and Cherie Rich.
The Riches are everything the Malloys aren't--settled, wealthy, taxpaying Americans. They have just purchased a new home in an exclusive gated community where nobody knows them. . . and now, on their way to take possession of the house, they've been killed in a car wreck. To the eyes of a seasoned conman like Wayne, the dead couple is ripe for massive identity theft.
Not content to merely plunder the Rich's worldly goods, Wayne decides to adopt their lifestyle. He moves his family into their home, turns up for work at Doug's job, and sends his kids -- for the first time in their lives -- to school. But living the good life, it turns out, is no fast track to happiness. Money alone cannot solve all of Wayne and Dahlia's problems: the Travelers are still out there hunting them, and the road-smart Malloys can only keep up the middle-class façade for so long.
Edgy Romance and Gritty Drama
A TV series needs two things to vault it above the realm of mere adequacy: great scripts, and actors who can live up to their material. The Riches has both. In thirteen short episodes, this show delves into sibling relationships, the ethics of theft, arranged marriages, the emotional cost of paid work, and a host of other thorny topics. The intertwined topics of marriage, home, and security recur through it all.
Marriage often receives a facile treatment on network TV, which generally prefers that its characters be singletons caught up in webs of unresolved sexual tension. Watching a romance develop and blossom is a safely-understood way to gratify viewers, and if two characters become dull after falling in love, a traumatic breakup can always be arranged. In contrast, the depiction of two people working through the issues of an imperfect marriage can offer tricky challenges, moving into territory where a kiss doesn't necessarily make everything better and love doesn't always conquer all. Shows that do talk about marriage seriously, Six Feet Under, the short-lived cop show Boomtown and now The Riches, are to be treasured.
Izzard and Driver are nothing short of jaw-dropping as the often-conflicted but always-loving Mom and Pop of this criminal family enterprise. The trio of young actors who play their children (perhaps especially the delicate Aidan Mitchell, with his convincing portrayal of their transgendered youngest, Sam) give utterly solid performances. The cast is rounded out by a bevy of odd neighbors and co-workers, especially the deliciously loathsome Gregg Henry as as Doug's boss, real estate mogul Hugh Panetta.
Viewers expect DVDs to come with extras, and this one is no exception--it has a gag reel, some episode commentaries, and the usual featurettes, along with a number of webisodes--short snippets of Izzard teaching the children various cons--that are laugh out loud funny.
Series creator Dmitri Lipkin has produced a tour de force on his first foray into television. The Riches is nuanced and packed with ideas, reflecting an enormous range of human experience -- the depths yes, but also the incredible highs. As it leaps from Wayne and Dahlia's latest high-stakes con to life-or-death drama, it manages, frequently, to be both funny and heart wrenching at the same time.
