"Neural Emotions"
Maniac is a limited series about mental illness, pharmaceutical trials, and the connection between two damaged people trying to fix themselves. It's also a surreal journey through alternate realities, fantasy scenarios, and retro-futuristic aesthetics. Owen (Jonah Hill) and Annie (Emma Stone) are strangers who join a drug trial that promises to cure anything. The drugs send them into shared hallucinations that might be healing or might be something else entirely.
Owen has schizophrenia, or thinks he does. His wealthy family wants him to lie in court to protect his brother. He's never had his own life; he's always been the spare, the problem, the one who doesn't fit. Annie is addicted to the pills meant for her sister, who died in a car accident Annie blames herself for. She takes the trial for the drugs. Owen takes it to escape his family.
The trial is run by Dr. James Mantleray (Justin Theroux) and his AI assistant GRTA. His mother, Dr. Roberta Muramoto (Sally Field), runs the facility. The drugs are supposed to guide patients through three phases: agonizing over trauma, processing trauma, and accepting trauma. The process doesn't work as planned.
The hallucinations are wildly creative—Owen and Annie become gangsters in Prohibition-era New York, a married couple in a 1940s noir, a brother and sister in a fantasy quest with elves and giants. Each reality reveals more about their actual traumas. The show uses its premise to explore mental illness without being preachy, and surrealism without being arbitrary.
Jonah Hill and Emma Stone are revelation. The production design is retro-futuristic—computers with tube screens, furniture from the 1970s, technology that feels like the future as imagined from the past. It's beautiful, strange, and genuinely moving.
Cinematography (10): Every frame is designed. The retro-futuristic aesthetic is stunning and consistent.
World Building (9): Each hallucination is a complete reality with its own logic. The clinical world is equally detailed.
Characters & Acting (9): Jonah Hill and Emma Stone are phenomenal, playing multiple versions of themselves across realities.
"The Chosen One!" (E1) — Owen and Annie's introduction. The trial begins.
"Furs by Sebastian" (E5) — The 1940s noir hallucination. Marriage, murder, mystery.
"Cape and Goggles" (E10) — The finale. Breaking out. Finding each other.
US/UK: Netflix