Margo's Got Money Troubles

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The new Apple TV series Margot's Got Money. Boasts a big and impressive cast. El Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, There's no shortage of star power. It's based on a well-received novel by Rufie Thorpe and it was created for television by the prolific producer and writer David E. Kelly. Does the series about a college student whose life gets very complicated when she becomes pregnant and decides to be a single mom live up to the many big names in the credits?

It does, and it's a real pleasure. I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about Margot's Got Money Troubles on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get wise. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply.

Joining me today is Kristen Meinzer. She co-hosts the nightly a bedtime podcast for pop culture lovers. Hello, Kristen! Hi Linda. Thanks for having me back. Of course, also with us is the host of the podcast Happy to Be Here, Greta Johnson. Hello, Greta. Hello, this is a dream team. I'm so excited to be here. Dream team. Delighted to see you both. So in Margot's Got Money Troubles, Elle Fanning stars as Margot Millett, a young woman who's studying writing in college.

She was herself raised by a single mom, former Hooters waitress Cheyenne, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, and has only a limited relationship with her dad, a former professional wrestler named Jinx, played by Nick Offerman. Margot is doing well in school and holding down a job, but things change when she has an affair with her married professor.

When she gets pregnant, she decides to have the baby, a boy she names Bodhi. Bodhi's dad is not helpful, and eventually Margot's need to support herself and Bodhi leads her to explore online sex work with an OnlyFans account. It makes sense to Marg. It's something she can do that's creative. She can do it from home, and she doesn't have to deal with anybody in person.

As all this is happening, Margot also struggles with her relationship with her mom, who fears that Margot is repeating all her most painful mistakes, and with her dad, who's recently out of rehab and wants to help. The show was created for TV by David E. Kelly, who way back in the day made shows like Allie McBeal and The Practice, and who, in the more contemporary cable and streaming era, has done work like Big Little Lies and The Undoing.

Margo's Got Money Troubles is airing now on Apple TV. I'm gonna start with you, Greta. How did you like Margo's Got Money Troubles? I loved Margot's Got Money Troubles. I am a huge fan of the book, big fan of Ruffy Thorpe, the author. I think what's tricky for me with an adaptation, especially of something that I do really love is I want it to feel familiar, but I also want to be surprised and excited. And I think

Like this TV show did that perfectly. It is not a like scene for scene copy of the book, and it should not be. You used the word real pleasure earlier. It is just a real pleasure to watch this show. Yeah. So I have sort of the same reaction to adaptations. It's always gonna be something different. It's not gonna be the exact thing. It has to

It has to be. And I think when they're too faithful, it can be a real problem. And I haven't read the book, but as I understand it, some choices here that I think are to the benefit of the ultimate project. Kristen, how about you? What'd you think? Oh Yeah. Well, ditto on everything you've both said up until now. I thought it was such a pleasure. So I've read it twice. Once I read it with my eyes, and the second time

I listened with my ears'cause, you know, I wanted to hear El Fanning narrate this. And I will say there are definite differences as far as the tone, in my opinion. The book is a little sadder, a little darker. And then on top of the tone, I think that the book has some things I don't like very much that I'm glad are not in the TV show thus far. So for example, the book has

Margot involved in a romance with one of her OnlyFan subscribers. Yeah. And much to my chagrin, that OnlyFan subscriber rescues Margot in the end financially by setting up a discovery algorithm. so that her OnlyFans can attract more customers so that she can make all the money she needs to to take care of everything. And I just prefer I'll I'll say it in the T V show. There's not this guy trying to rescue her in it. There are a lot of people who are helping each other out.

in the T V show, but nobody's really being rescued. Yeah. Everyone's making mistakes. Yeah. Everyone's trying to rescue themselves. And sometimes they're actually failing themselves and failing the people around them that they love. But no one's really being rescued. And I so appreciate that about the TV show. Everyone's flawed, everyone's wonderful, everyone's terrible, everyone's relatable. And I just found it to be a delight.

Light. Yeah, I really like the community that she is surrounded by. Her parents are both such flawed people, but I think in the hands of Pfeiffer and Offerman, they're also. kind of they fiercely love her, but they also both make tons of mistakes and have, you know, lots of problems. As I understand it, Cheyenne is more generous in the TV show than she is in the in the book. I liked T V Cheyenne a lot more than Book Cheyenne, yeah.

For all I know, maybe that's the result of casting Michelle Pfeiffer, who of course is married to David E. Kelly. And I was really happy to see her in this role. She she's been working, you know, she's also in this show, The Madison. And it's not that she ever stopped working, but like This is a really good reminder of kind of what an empathetic and I think interesting actor she is and can be.

I'll say this for listen, you know, streaming has been has had its ups and its downs and its goods and its bads, but it remains true that there are a lot of women who are over forty or over fifty. who did not used to get a lot of juicy opportunities for really good parts. I think she's great in this. This is, I think, my favorite Nick Offerman performance besides Ron Swanson. I think I might even like it more than Ront. He giggles more, which is such a delight.

Like I would never let anybody take the place of Ron Swanson. I respect But this is also a completely different thing, right? It's much more dramatic. It's a completely different kind of dude. the neck tattoos alone are like I'm here. I think he is fantastic in this. This is all aside from the fact that I think El Fanning

so good in this and it's such a role that could so easily go wrong in various ways. She could be too sad. She could be too I mean a lot of young women that you see in roles like this, they come off flighty in some way or they come off unserious. About parenting or unserious about their lives. This character, you know, the way she's written and the way she's performed.

For her, doing work on OnlyFans is not as loaded as television and film sometimes treat sex work as being. For her, it's like, listen, it's a job I can do from home. It's a job I can do while managing my kid. There's not a lot of startup expenses for me as a content creator in this context. It's doesn't feel dangerous because she doesn't have to see people in person. And so, sort of other than some idea that you should be embarrassed by it or that you should be ashamed of it, for her.

This is a thing that makes sense as a way to make money. And television and film have such a long history of being so bad at talking about sex work and dealing with sex work. There have been, you know, some good shows. I think P Valley on Stars, which took place at a strip club, which is obviously very different from OnlyFans, but it is also a kind of sex work that I think people felt like that was a better portrayal in terms of the fact that it was a little fuller in terms of the characters.

You know, this to me is an example of how to talk about a thing that is a real part of a lot of people's lives without. Either eliding the fact that it can there can be difficult things about it, because obviously she is not eager to have everybody find out for a variety of reasons.

But like it doesn't present this as an incredibly grim thing, because she has this circle of people that she cares about, her roommates, but also she ends up with, you know, these kind of co-workers, these other women who work as creators who kind of form a little collective with her. I like this portrayal of the work that she does.

She likes it, which I think is notable. It's not just depicted as something tragic, last resort. And now she is Fonteen and lame as a rob and going to the streets because she has no other choice. It's not depicted that way. Initially it's like Like, uh, is this something? Uh but she's a storyteller and this gives her a chance to be a storyteller. And she's funny and she finds ways to engage with people and yeah. Absolutely. And so it's not

her who's feeling any shame about it, but she is dealing with public shaming throughout her journey on the show. But it's not coming from her. And even though at times it might seem like it's even coming from her mom, her mom who was a Hooter's waitress. It's not so much shame, it's fear of I don't want my daughter to end up just like me is really much more what it's about.

I think when it comes to the sex work aspect of the story too, I mean it's also worth noting how much OnlyFans has changed sex work.

In terms of Linda, as you mentioned, like the fact that you don't have to meet people in real life, like so many of the safety aspects that make me nervous when I think about sex work don't exist in this world, which is also you know, it just like completely changes what that looks like in a way that I think is really interesting and which the book and this series also explore.

And and I think she feels very in control of this business. Like when she sets this up, it's like I will do the things that I want to do to make money for myself. It is to make money. You know, regardless of that, you still do have a story about a young woman who is trying really hard to make ends meet. It's not easy to make ends meet. It's not easy to have the life that she wants. She does worry about her kid, but also partly because

She's got all these other things going on. And when you eventually see Nicole Kidman make her way into this story, she doesn't have a huge role until kind of the later episodes. But when you see her make her way into this story in a serious way, it's because she's an attorney and she gets involved because there is some legal stuff around Bodie's father. It's not that the that Hurst that Margot's situation isn't difficult.

It's that doing sex work is not what makes it difficult. It's other things that make her situation difficult. I think the way that they give her, like I said, all these people in her life who care about her, it becomes a kind of a I don't know. It's like an it's a wonderful life kind of, you know. Even when other things are really, really bad, you at least have this group of people that cares about.

It takes a village. You really get that in the It's very funny how like sweet and wholehearted this show is given how also like raunchy and imperfect everyone is too.

Yeah. And I love as part of that sweetness that people are constantly reinventing themselves. Mm-hmm. But the characters are always deciding, I'm gonna do this instead of this. And you know, Nicole Kidman's character wasn't always an attorney. Right when we first meet her. She's actually one of Jinx's former wrestling co-stars. Yeah. But she can be lots of things in life. And Michelle Pfeiffer can be lots of things in life. Michelle Pfeiffer's trying to reinvent herself in a way that

some people might also question, like, is she being true to herself? Is she being aspirational? Is she trying to do what's best for herself or is she doing what looks best to others? And Sometimes when we reinvent ourselves, it's not always straightforward like this is an A plus decision. Sometimes it's a B minus, but also, you know, a little bit of best effort and commendation along with that.

Yeah, I also think it's interesting how much these characters disappoint each other. Yes. You know, and the fact that they also are able to apologize and make amends. Like I think So often, especially in a really dramatic show, you know, it's like that one thing is like you've crossed the line, this is it, I'm never gonna speak to you again. Whereas this there is so much sort of like

coming apart and coming back together and like just trying to figure it out. And I think it's so lovely to watch all these characters do that. I did Want to say one other thing about Nicole Kidman, which is, as Kristen mentioned, she's a wrestler-turned lawyer. And having watched Nicole Kidman play an awful lot of these kind of chilly Rich ice in the veins kind of women on streaming shows in the last few years.

Like Scarpeta is supposed to be like a fiery character, but there's something remote about her. I found watching Nicole Kidman in this part, which is a little more fire in the belly, there's a little she seems to be having a little more fun. And I really welcomed that. You know, this is a character who, you know, at one point you look at this and you see, you know, you're going from a scene that's like Michelle Pfeiffer, L Fanning.

Nicole Kidman, then you go into another room and it's Marcia Gayharden, and it's like, this is just a really cool collection of people. This is just a really cool collection of actors. So yeah, can we also shout out Greg Kneer as Cheyenne's boyfriend? Oh my god. He is very different than his book character also in ways that I find very endearing and yeah, I he's just he's so perfect. Cheyenne's very pious boyfriend. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In his piousness he is just also not perfect. Totally clueless.

Very very flawed. Flawed. That's a nice way to put it. I was gonna say, like, uh, I don't want to spoil it, but yeah, he's very flawed himself. But like more kind than you would think, than I thought he would be, you know? Like I was really pleasantly surprised by his. Yeah. Yeah. At certain times very generous in his spirit, like so generous and like we're humans and humans do things and that's okay. And then in other moments, maybe not so much.

Sh he'll surprise you. There are moments where you expect him to be really judgy because he is so so proud of his piety. And then he isn't. And then there are other times where you kind of expect he wouldn't be and he is and you sort of don't know for sure. I also want to give it a shout to um Michael Angarano, who plays the professor who is

Bodhi's father. You really have to be careful when you play the odious person in a story like this, which he essentially is because he offers her no help. First of all, he sleeps with a student and gets her pregnant. And But then is not helpful, is not interested, is kind of callous to her, is definitely one of these guys who sees it as like, if you insist on having this baby, that becomes your problem. But doesn't he say you're aborting your future? I mean that's a hell of a statement.

quite a thing to say. Like you have to be able to like revel in his awfulness. Without making it impossible to understand why she had an affair with him. And I think they sort of give him enough. Like from the things that he's saying to her at the beginning of the the book, he's giving her for one uh at this of the story, for one thing, he's giving her a lot of reassurance that she needs. He's praising her writing, and you can see it.

In retrospect, like when you're older, you can kind of see how he's sort of setting it up that he's wants to have sex with her. But you understand how like she's young, she's you know, she has not had much stability in her life. This man taking an interest in her is very interesting to her. But I think the way that he plays this part is sort of I think he finds the right way to do it where you hate him, but it doesn't seem ridiculous that she ever had sex with him.

Well, I think it's also like he's such a loser, you know. The fact that like you mentioned Marsha Gayhard and she plays his mother. like she's more of the villain arguably than he is. Like I think of him as sort of like almost irrelevant, you know? It's like aside from being the sperm contributor. Like he doesn't matter. It's that his mother is so insistent about all of it that he ends up right. You know, part of the drama still.

You know, he actually just struck me as the kind of guy who could only score with a nineteen year old who was insecure. That's kind of how I read him. In his own way, I think he is likable to that 19-year-old who doesn't know any better. But yeah, obviously any grown woman would not fall for the hut.

And through the entire thing, you know, you mentioned, Kristen, that there isn't really a love interest for her in this version of the story, which I found really refreshing because I think for a lot of people who are in this kind of situation, they're single parents, They're trying to find work, they're trying to make ends meet. They have chaotic family situations. They don't even necessarily have time or emotional energy to be out here thinking about romance. You dating?

For this season, I found it refreshing not to ha be dealing with a romance element. Yeah, I mean she's also a great mom. And I think they depict that really nicely in the T V show. There's some really lovely moments of just her with her baby smiling at each other, you know? She was so cute. Oh her baby. Oh cute.

Also without sugar coating, how hard it is. I mean, that baby is crying round the clock twenty three and a half hours a day. And that's not something they gloss over, you know. Being a teen mom, being a mom of any age with a newborn is tough. Yes. And the pregnancy itself, there's a sort of a montage where they show how uncomfortable and difficult being very pregnant is for her. She's not one of these people who's like, Oh, I just constantly go around feeling so

I'm glowing. I feel so wonderful. She, you know, there are moments where she's like lying on the floor of a store because she's so uncomfortable. She just has to lie down. She's you know, lying on her side on the bed because it's the only position she can find that she's comfortable in. And I think it's more honest about some of the physical realities of pregnancy and babies.

than a lot of other shows about pregnancy and babies have been. Yes. I had the pleasure of interviewing author Roofy Thorpe to talk about the adaptation on my podcast. Happy to be here. And she also brought up a really good point around Al Fanning's body and the idea that by the time you get to the OnlyFans stuff you're actually kind of sick of seeing her boobs. It's true. Because there have been so many scenes of her trying to breastfeed and infuriate.

It's true. Infin. And I think even that is like such a fascinating, like we don't see that on TV like that. Yeah, yeah. I really liked the fact that when they do start showing you some of what the OnlyFans content looks like. I like the balance that they strike where like you can understand how it is sexy, but you can also understand how it's funny and intentionally funny and it's like kind of intentionally corny and like

It's like sexy plan nine from outer space at one point. And you could kind of understand how. for her, it's creatively fulfilling to make these little essentially vignettes and the fact that she and some of her colleagues might be naked in it doesn't mean it's not a funny little skit like you would do in any other setting, you know? So I think by the time she makes the point that she likes it because it's creative.

You know, they've given you reason to understand that. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we all really enjoyed this show. It is airing on Apple TV. I think it's I think it's well worth your time, you know, and as somebody who didn't read the book, I liked it. As people who did read the book, you guys both liked it. So that brings us to the end of our show. Greta Johnson, Kristen Meinzer, thank you so much for being here. It's so fun to talk about something we all like. Yes, thank you.

What a treat. What a treat. This episode is produced by Huffsafothama and Mike Katziff and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy R Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsored by.

So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes and we'll see you all next time.