Deadline described Jeff Garlin’s upcoming film Handsome as a “Columbo-style mystery comedy” when Netflix acquired it last summer, but on the evidence of the trailer it’s really more of a Jeff Garlin–style mystery comedy. Which is not a bad thing! Garlin, who directed and co-wrote the script with Andrea Seigel, stars as a Los Angeles homicide detective named Gene Handsome—hence the title—who’s investigating a case that, although the details aren’t entirely clear, definitely involves a severed head, Lake Hollywood Park, and a house that would be a real stretch on a detective’s salary. (Maybe Gene Handsome sold his story to the movies, like Bosch.)
It also involves Natasha Lyonne, Timm Sharp, Christine Woods, Amy Sedaris, and a lot of other funny, funny people engaging in the comedy of humiliation and long, awkward pauses Garlin got down to a science in his Curb Your Enthusiasm appearances. Even the trailer editors can’t take it—just look at how they wedged a slapstick shot of Garlin with his legs sticking out of a window right in the middle of his scene with a stuck-up actor played by Steven Weber. We won’t get to chuckle uncomfortably at the full, excruciating rhythm of that scene, or the rest of the film, until Handsome hits Netflix on May 5.
