Telling the story behind the rise and fall of WeWork and its eccentric co-founding couple Adam (Jared Leto) and Rebekah Neumann (Anne Hathaway), the premiere episode of AppleTV+’s WeCrashed lays an exciting foundation moving forward. As someone unfamiliar with the infamous true story behind the show, the episode that was previewed at SXSW was a pure sensation.
What begins rather pedestrian, starting with the first sign of the characters’ failure, WeCrashed quickly corrects course with the introduction to Adam and Rebekah, a power couple obsessed with maintaining a cult without realizing they’re leading a cult. Just how many people are willingly a part of this without receiving a paycheck and fear of being fired, remains to be seen. But anyone that demands that Katy Perry’s “Roar” be played at full-blast without interruption between their car and office, must be at least a little bit unhinged, right?
Cut to 12 years prior, Adam is a charismatic, yet struggling “serial entrepreneur” and Rebekah has the veneer of a lifestyle expert without fully realizing her own life. Once Adam is somehow able to pitch himself to Rebekah, both of their lives kick into high gear, having found their missing halves, each blinded by ambition. For the time being, all seems to be well even with the knowledge that once the story flashes forward, the co-working company they found will be on the verge of calamity.
The stakes are already well-established, so it’s the sheer power of the show’s leading duo that makes WeCrashed work as well as it does. Both Academy Award winners, there’s never really a question that Leto and Hathaway are capable of such performances, but seeing them both completely transform into their real-life counterparts is remarkable.
Perhaps it’s because of Leto’s recent penchant for playing roles that are physically transformative, but seeing him in plain sight, he’s somehow unrecognizable. More than copying Adam’s particular cadence and accent, Leto exudes the expert salesman persona, just as Hathaway does with her role, becoming the one person that can control a room better than Adam. Through one episode, this duo has made WeCrashed worth checking out the pilot and seeing if this can hold.
