hack movie reviews

‘Hacks’: Jean Smart Makes ’Em Laugh in Stand-Up Dramedy

By Alan Sepinwall

Alan Sepinwall

In the new HBO Max comedy series Hacks , Jean Smart plays comedy legend Deborah Vance, an aging celebrity who reluctantly hires young comedy writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) to freshen up an act that hasn’t changed much since she was telling jokes about the space shuttle Challenger exploding.

This setup is at once enticing and tricky. On the one hand, Smart — continuing a glorious TV second act that’s included Fargo , Legion , Watchmen , and Mare of Easttown — is charismatic and utterly convincing as a performer of a certain age who has survived every obstacle put in her path, only to discover that she has nothing left other than the career itself. And she and Einbinder develop quick and appealing chemistry as representatives of two different generations who have nothing in common other than their insatiable need to craft the perfect joke.

On the other hand, Hacks runs into what I’ve come to call the Studio 60 Problem, named for Aaron Sorkin’s infamous NBC drama about a fictionalized version of Saturday Night Live , where the sketches were never remotely as funny as we were told they were. Hacks is terrific in a lot of ways, but it’s also a reminder that writing fake comedy — fake stand-up comedy in particular — is one of the hardest things to do in the world of filmed entertainment.

There are plenty of “That Thing You Do”-level song pastiches out there, but far fewer convincing comedy facsimiles. There’s something intensely personal about a good stand-up routine that’s almost impossible to recreate, even if the material isn’t meant to be personal. Comedians tend to write for themselves, especially at the beginning. They know what sounds good coming out of their own mouths, what their performance rhythms are, what feels true. And they understand how to make honesty and humor complement each other, rather than coming into conflict. It’s a different discipline from writing scripted comedy dialogue, and even if you’re great at that, the skill doesn’t necessarily translate. (Midge on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , for example, is almost always funnier off-stage than on.) Most fictional stand-up routines come from the pens of non-comics(*). They also have to serve two masters: 1) make the audience believe that this person is a successful, funny comic; and 2) reveal important details about who this person is and what makes them tick. More often than not, those goals wind up at odds. And even if the jokes are somehow grade-A stand-up material, there’s still the matter of them being delivered by actors who may be great at comedy within scenes, but not at the specific demands of standing at the mic.

Editor’s picks

The 100 best tv episodes of all time, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 200 greatest singers of all time.

(*) There are also occasions where real stand-up comedians are brought in to help improve the material of their fictional counterparts, as happened on the movie Punchline , where Tom Hanks and Sally Field played would-be comedy club stars . But that’s fraught in its own way, because if you’re a comic and you think of a great bit, are you going to give it to Tom Hanks or keep it for yourself? (The Punchline routines definitely suffer from the Studio 60 Problem.) 

So when Deborah is patrolling the floor of the Las Vegas theater where she’s had a record-setting residency, or even when she and Ava are pitching one-liners at each other, there’s something off about Hacks . This can be a problem at times, since jokes themselves are the primary things that bring our two leads together and push them apart. Deborah’s act, or even the lines Ava invents for her, call to mind Perd Hapley from Parks and Rec telling Leslie Knope that he didn’t understand the quip she just made, “but it had the cadence of a joke.”

But after a while, the show’s creators — Broad City alums Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello (who directs most of the episodes), and Jen Statsky — seem to recognize their limitations in this area. We rarely see Deborah on stage for extended periods, and one of the times we do features her scrapping her planned routine to deal with a heckler. Instead, they show us just enough of her in action — at her theater, during her regular stints on QVC, at the opening of a pizzeria that’s paying her an obscene amount of money for a ribbon-cutting ceremony — to create the plausible illusion of her forever stardom, then trade off that to drive the conflicts between her and Ava, and between her and the other people in her small social circle: love-starved daughter DJ (Kaitlin Olson from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia , in a clever bit of genetic casting), aloof business manager Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), and charming casino boss Marty (Christopher McDonald, in the kind of part he was born to play), whose threats to cancel Deborah’s residency inspires her and Ava’s shared agent Jimmy (Downs) to pair them in the first place.

Related Stories

'the confidante,' max's limited series revolving around bataclan attack, shares new trailer, 'snl': mark robinson fails miserably playing the $100,000 pyramid.

We meet Ava at a particularly low moment in her career, and life. Once a rising star in L.A. comedy circles, she has become unemployable due to offensive social media posts. She’s recently broken up with her girlfriend (the show mines a lot of comedy from Ava over-explaining her sexuality to Deborah), and whenever we see her interacting with her showbiz peers, it becomes obvious that her talent was the main reason people indulged her brusque, nakedly careerist personality. For all the professional, generational, and socioecomonic gaps between her and her new boss, they have a similar drive, as well as a need to fill an emotional void with other people’s laughter. Some of the best moments of Hacks Season One involve one or the other woman recognizing what they share in common, even before it becomes obvious they are settling into a surrogate mother-daughter role.

There’s not an exact real-life analogue for Deborah(*), though it’s easy to look at her as a WASPy, slightly younger Joan Rivers — one episode even deepfakes Jean Smart into a late-night talk show pilot Deborah filmed in her Seventies heyday — and the series is keenly aware of what she would have gone through to both attain and hang onto the degree of fame she has when the show begins. There’s a great installment where Deborah introduces Ava to an old friend from the comedy club circuit, Francine (played by Anna Maria Horsford, who was on Amen at the same time Smart was on Designing Women ). The two veterans trade war stories, and Ava is horrified to learn of the treatment they endured from their male contemporaries, and also startled by how unfazed they are by the memories. Ava has built her whole persona around what she thinks of as confrontational truth-telling — she tells a disgusted Jimmy that her professional strife is “punishment for getting fingered at my Uncle Rocco’s wake” — while she thinks of Deborah as a dinosaur who has always played it safe. But life, and the people in it, are more complicated than the narratives we build about ourselves or each other, and Hacks ‘ most poignant and funniest material involves Ava and Deborah seeing each other as people and not symbols of all that’s been denied them.

(*) Art vaguely imitating life: While Einbinder wasn’t born into Hollywood royalty on the level of Deborah Vance, her mother is original SNL cast member Laraine Newman. 

Smart is, as usual, fantastic — at once larger than life and acutely human, and also able to deliver Deborah’s insults with verve, like when she says of watching Ava brainstorm jokes, “Wow, it’s like watching Picasso sing.” Einbinder, a relative newcomer, doesn’t have her co-star’s polish or control over her own instrument, but she doesn’t need it. “Deobrah Vance, comedy superstar” is in many ways a facade the real Deborah has built, and you have to pay close attention to spot the moments when she drops it and lets her own personality come out. Ava, on the other hand, is an exposed nerve, lacking subtlety or impulse control, and it’s fun watching her work herself to exhaustion to solve problems her hated boss could untangle with a small gesture or a slight change in her inflection.

Both are a treat separately, and the season does a good job of building up the ensemble around them so that the show works even when they’re both getting a breather. Jimmy has to endure an incompetent assistant (Meg Stalter) who’s the daughter of his boss, and the writers keep finding new and amusing ways for her to screw up. And Carl Clemons-Hopkins has some endearing moments as Deborah and Ava’s working relationship gives Marcus some unexpected free time to figure out what he wants out of life besides building Deborah’s empire. But Hacks really sings when it puts its two leads together to annoy, insult, and occasionally learn from each other.

Would it help if the jokes the two work on were stronger? Sure, but Hacks also talks a lot about how hard good joke-writing is. It gets everything else right, so it deserves the extra time to figure that last part out.

The first two episodes of Hacks will be released on HBO Max on May 13th, with two episodes dropping weekly through June 10th. I’ve seen all 10.

At Last, 'Smash' Sets Broadway Dates, Announces Cast

• Let Me Be Your Star
• By Kalia Richardson

Donald Trump's Story About Arnold Palmer's Huge Hog Was a Gift to Late-Night Television

• By Jon Blistein

New Docuseries Examines the Infamous 'Stanford Prison Experiment'

• By Charisma Madarang

Andrew Garfield Is Having the Time of His Life

• IN CONVERSATION
• By David Fear

Eva Mendes Would Only Return to Acting Alongside Husband Ryan Gosling

• Maybe Someday
• By Emily Zemler

Most Popular

Tmz posts, then removes, liam payne death photos after backlash, liam payne, one direction member, dies at 31, serena williams’ daughters are beautiful in bows as they model for their mama in adorable new photos, deshaun watson achilles injury has contractual implications, you might also like, mipcom cannes diversity tv awards: ‘white nanny black child’ and ‘lost boys and fairies’ among top winners, jill biden goes green in monochrome argent pantsuit and silk blouse for rose garden white house event, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, is the ‘blade’ reboot ever gonna happen a timeline of all the delays so far, a-rod, lore put $942 million in escrow as arbitration looms.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Pop Culture Happy Hour

• Performing Arts
• Pop Culture

'Hacks': A Comedic Generational Divide Gets Bridged, (Jean) Smartly

Glen Weldon

L to R: Legendary comic Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) performs while her reluctant assistant Ava (Hannah Einbinder) literally waits in the wings on Hacks . Jake Niles Getter/HBO Max hide caption

L to R: Legendary comic Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) performs while her reluctant assistant Ava (Hannah Einbinder) literally waits in the wings on Hacks .

There exists, in some alternate universe, a version of the new HBO Max series Hacks that is spikier, faster, meaner — and as a result, considerably thinner, less generous and less rewarding — than the one that premieres today.

Happily, this one's pretty great, because it achieves and maintains a delicate balance born out of: 1. Knowing its subject and 2. A determination to treat its two lead characters fairly.

There's a make-or-break moment in the pilot that establishes that balance, that confidence and that generosity all at once: Ava (Hannah Einbinder), a successful young comedy writer fallen on hard times, has been forced by her manager (co-creator Paul W. Downs) to meet legendary standup comic Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) at her Vegas home. Deborah's Vegas residency is threatened by a casino owner looking to reach a younger audience than Deborah draws, so she reluctantly agrees to the meet.

The battle lines are drawn: Deborah is a comic of the Joan Rivers generation and mindset — her act is full of bawdy zingers at her ex-husband and winking self-deprecation at the prospect of aging. Every joke builds to a punchline that's been honed to practiced perfection over the years. She's a consummate pro, even if her references are getting rusty (she's still going to the Anna Nicole Smith well, for example). There's an edge to her comedy, sure, but its not one so sharp that it threatens to cut any of the thousands of tourists that show up to see her shows between hitting the nickel slots.

Ava's comedy is weirder, more conceptual. Younger. Birthed and fueled by social media, she sees traditional punchlines as a marker of hackdom; they are things to be fled, in favor of, say, "a 25-tweet thread from the perspective of my Lexapro." She's also got a set of hackles that get dependably raised by Deborah's coarser, less enlightened jokes.

The show is teetering on knife-edge, in this scene. You can imagine it going one of two ways: Either it adopts Ava's point of view and proceeds to depict Deborah as a cartoon of an out-of-touch comedy relic with a fossilized understanding of race and gender whose wealth and station have turned her into a pampered diva. Or it takes Deborah's side, and becomes a thin excuse for an endless string of exasperated jokes about Millennials, vaping, sexting and "cancel culture."

We then learn that Ava's lost her cushy gig writing for a show in L.A. because of a joke she tweeted about a US Senator. And we think: That's it then, the die is cast. The show's an excuse to whine about "cancel culture" and vape pens and avocado toast. Whee.

And then, soon after the Ava-Deborah meeting goes south, we learn what exactly the tweet in question was, and we deflate even more.

How 'Ted' Lassoed His Way Into Our Hearts

Because we've seen comedy written about the comedy business before, countless times, and it rarely works. It's come to be called the Studio 60 phenomenon, named for Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip , his attempt to offer a behind-the-scenes peek at the makings of an SNL -like sketch comedy show. The behind-the-scenes stuff was full of the kind of comedic dialogue Sorkin could write in his sleep. But the scenes ? The actual sketches? Upon which the conceit of the series entirely depended? Were so woefully, painfully unfunny they represented a serial assault on the audience's suspension of disbelief, from which the show could never recover.

We think that's what's going on, here, too, at first. Because Ava's tweet 1. Would never, on the face of it, result in anything approaching "cancellation" and 2. ...

Well, that's the thing. That's when the show firmly establishes that it knows whereof it speaks. Because that's when Deborah rolls her eyes at Ava, and tells her exactly what we the audience is thinking: "It's just not funny," she says. (They proceed to workshop the joke, and they make it better. Better, not good. This seems important.)

From that moment on, Hacks lets the hard, caricature-like outlines of both Ava and Deborah proceed to abrade away as the two women are allowed to become rounded, real characters. They still clash, often, over the course of the season (the first six episodes out of the season's ten were released to press), because that's where the show's humor is chiefly located. But those clashes tend to be small, smartly observed and specific, not cartoonishly broad. That they will both grudgingly come to acknowledge and validate each other's comedic sensibilities is a foregone conclusion, given the series' odd-couple setup; the delight resides in the unforced chemistry between Smart and Einbeinder, and in how that mutual respect evolves.

I don't know if the role of Deborah Vance was written for Smart, but she certainly makes it seem like it was. Moments that could be played for unkind laughs — a Sally-Field-in- Soapdish moment when Deborah boards a Hollywood tour bus in search of validation, say — are instead played for their humanity and vulnerability. As a result, the payoffs prove infinitely more satisfying. Smart's also convincing as a standup, performing Deborah's vaguely hokey routines with a naturalistic flair as if she was born to it.

Einbinder's role is arguably trickier, as she's tasked with playing someone the audience is inclined to empathize with, even as she continually evinces behavior that's self-involved or self-destructive. But again: Hacks isn't interested in painting either of its leads with a broad brush, and Ava is given several moments of self-awareness and selflessness that add layers of nuance, and understanding.

To say that Hacks is refreshingly and surprisingly generous to its two leads — and to its supporting characters, like Carl Clemons-Hopkins' gently sardonic C.O.O. Marcus and Kaitlin Olson as Deborah's messy daughter — isn't to slot it into the warm-fuzziness of a show like say, Ted Lasso . It's both sharper and (not for nothing) queerer than that. But like that hugely engaging series, Hacks creates a world of characters and dialogue and situations you want to spend as much time with as possible.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

• About Rotten Tomatoes®
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening This Week
• Top Box Office
• Coming Soon to Theaters
• Certified Fresh Movies

Movies at Home

• Fandango at Home
• Prime Video
• Most Popular Streaming Movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• 85% Smile 2 Link to Smile 2
• 99% Anora Link to Anora
• 80% We Live in Time Link to We Live in Time

New TV Tonight

• 86% What We Do in the Shadows: Season 6
• -- Poppa's House: Season 1
• -- Territory: Season 1
• -- Before: Season 1
• -- Hellbound: Season 2
• -- The Equalizer: Season 5
• -- Breath of Fire: Season 1
• -- Beauty in Black: Season 1
• -- Like a Dragon: Yakuza: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 94% The Penguin: Season 1
• 82% Agatha All Along: Season 1
• 78% Disclaimer: Season 1
• 95% Rivals: Season 1
• 79% Teacup: Season 1
• 75% Hysteria!: Season 1
• 100% From: Season 3
• 100% The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 3
• 85% Sweetpea: Season 1
• 94% Nobody Wants This: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV

Certified fresh pick

• 96% Shrinking: Season 2 Link to Shrinking: Season 2
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

All Marvel Movies In Order: How To Watch MCU Chronologically

30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

The Most Anticipated Movies of 2025

One Last Visit to What We Do In The Shadows

• Trending on RT
• Verified Hot Movies
• TV Premiere Dates
• Gladiator II First Reactions
• Halloween Programming Guide

Where to Watch

Watch Hacks with a subscription on Max, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

Cast & Crew

Paul W. Downs

Lucia Aniello

Jen Statsky

Deborah Vance

Hannah Einbinder

Ava Daniels

Carl Clemons-Hopkins

More Like This

Related tv news, series info.

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

Give Jean Smart All the Awards for Hacks

Given her performances in Watchmen , Mare of Easttown , and, now, the new Hacks , it’s clear that Jean Smart should be cast in every HBO and HBO Max show.

The Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon ? Jean Smart should be in that.

The Sex and the City reboot? Obviously, Jean Smart should be in that.

How to With John Wilson ? I mean, that’s fine. But what about How to With Jean Smart ?

This is a long way of saying that, not surprisingly, Jean Smart is fantastic in Hacks. (The show’s first pair of episodes premiere tomorrow on HBO Max, with the rest of the ten-episode season dropping weekly in pairs.) As a legendary stand-up comic forced to work with a young comedy writer, she’s wry, manipulative, complicated, and completely flummoxed by the sensibility of her new collaborator, played by r eal-life comedian Hannah Einbinder . “They’re not jokes,” Smart’s Deborah Vance says to Einbinder’s Ava Daniels in the second episode after reading some of Ava’s pitches. “They’re like thought poems. I had a horrible nightmare that I got a voice-mail .” Smart stares at the joke for a couple of seconds, as if it will make sense to her if she looks at it long enough. Then she turns her gaze back to Einbinder and squawks: “ What? ”

In that same conversation about Ava’s “thought poems,” Deborah says that jokes have to have a punch line. Ava disagrees, noting that “traditional joke structure is very male,” a comment that’s basically a mission statement for Hacks. It’s a show about two women that, by design, eschews traditional joke structures. Even though it’s about the art of crafting comedy, Hacks does not operate by cranking out gag after gag. While there are set pieces here and there, most of the humor in the series comes from simply observing human behavior. Co-creators Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky, all alums of Broad City , seem keenly aware that generating laughter isn’t just something that pays the bills for Deborah or for Ava. It’s also sometimes the only thing that keeps oxygen flowing into a woman’s lungs when the world does everything it can to stifle her.

Generational conflict is also a driving force in Hacks . Deborah, whose long-standing dates at a Las Vegas casino are on the verge of being reduced to make room for younger talent, has no interest in working with a young, up-and-coming writer. Ava, a TV writer who lost her deal following a misguided tweet about a conservative senator and his gay son, needs a job but has no desire to pump out punch lines for a stand-up she initially views as past her prime. Their mutual agent, Jimmy (Downs), sets them up to meet anyway. After a disastrous first encounter in which Deborah is rudely dismissive and Ava blasts out a firehose of insults at her potential boss — “I’d rather sling Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp all day than work here” — Deborah surprises Ava by actually hiring her. It’s the beginning of a love-hate relationship in which two comedians routinely communicate by heckling each other.

Like all good comedians, both Ava and Deborah know that every choice in a joke, each preposition and well-chosen pause, has the potential to take it from average to great. So does the team behind Hacks, who write with such precision that sometimes the sharpness can’t be fully grasped on first viewing. On more than one occasion, a seemingly innocuous, funny piece of dialogue turns out to be a preview of a plot line that doesn’t unfold until a few episodes later. Ava’s voice-mail-nightmare joke, for example, subtly comes back to haunt her in episode six.

The series couldn’t ask for better delivery engines for that writing than Smart and Einbinder, who share a flair for dry comedy but deploy it in ways that highlight their characters’ age difference. Ava’s dehydrated bon mots often turn confessional and overshare-y, while Deborah holds her real emotions closer to her chest in the interest of maintaining her image. Both are judgmental, often for opposing reasons. When Ava complains that too much of Deborah’s set is aimed at satisfying basic “Panera people” who laugh at dumb stuff, Deborah responds, “So you’re telling me that if a lot of people think something is funny, it’s not.” They are both blunt as a hammer on an untapped nail. They hate that about each other, but they also respect it.

As Deborah, Smart dresses up her bluntness with casual elegance, gliding around in flowing blazers and oozing the self-assurance that comes with years of successfully accruing the kind of wealth that allows her to have a sizable staff, a private jet, and a soda fountain in her kitchen. (In addition to her regular stand-up gig, Deborah does a lot of product endorsements and sells her own line of luxury items on QVC.) While Smart sprinkles an appropriate amount of entitlement into Deborah’s demeanor, she also infuses her with grit and a strong work ethic. She’s the kind of woman who could be described as “a tough broad” and who would probably take that description as a compliment. Every time Smart is onscreen, she makes you curious to hear what’s going to come out of her mouth but even more curious to hear how she’s going to say it. When she does allow her shell to crack just enough to reveal some vulnerability, it’s a revelation.

Einbinder’s portrayal is, deliberately, the opposite of elegant. As Ava, she’s kind of a screw-up who is socially insecure, but so confident in her creative instincts that she borders on arrogant. She’s a strong match for Smart in a relationship that’s adversarial but also, as time goes on, more and more like one between a mother and daughter. They’re terrific together.

The two leads are surrounded by a great cast of supporting and recurring actors, including Kaitlin Olson as Deborah’s neglected, irresponsible daughter, Carl Clemons-Hopkins as Deborah’s ludicrously on-top-of-it manager, and Internet fave Meg Stalter as the absolutely out-of-it assistant to Jimmy. (When Jimmy asks for coffee with natural sugar, she brings him coffee with honey in it. “You said natural,” she explains. “It comes from bears.”)

But ultimately, Hacks is about two women struggling against similar forces even though they may not realize it. One is a funny young comedian with a distinctive voice that she isn’t sure people in the entertainment business want to hear. The other is an established, famous comic who spent decades working within the confines of a sexist business and isn’t sure how to break free of those restraints. It’s obvious that they can learn a lot from each other. One of the joys of Hacks is watching how hard and how long they’ll knock heads until they realize that.

• vulture section lede
• hannah einbinder

Most Viewed Stories

• The Highs, Lows, and Whoas of the 2024 Rock Hall Ceremony
• Cinematrix No. 210: October 22, 2024
• Everything That’s Happened to the Menendez Brothers Since Monsters
• Taylor Swift Forges Heterosexual Alliance With Dave Portnoy
• Love Is Blind ’s Hannah on the ‘Lesson’ She Learned Watching Katie and Nick Talk
• Trust the Kieran Culkin Process

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

• Lower case letters (a-z)
• Upper case letters (A-Z)
• Numbers (0-9)
• Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

The 10 Best Hacker Movies of All Time

I'm in..

Ever since the conception of at-home computers, the modern world has developed a demographic of computer fans fascinated by the many, hard-coded possibilities of the world wide web. All it takes is a few rapid strokes of the keyboard and access to the mainframe is granted, after all. At least that's how hacking is generally portrayed in modern cinema.

For our list today, the technology at hand ranges from as recent as 2015 all the way back to the early 80s, making the concept of hacking vastly variable in the ways it is presented. As coding is much like learning an entirely new language, it increases the creativity needed to visualize computer coding for the untrained mind. Apart from that, these movies carry their own unique narrative arcs that make them the best hacker movies of all time.

Top Hacker Movies

10. Swordfish (2001)

Swordfish is a campy, popcorn movie addition that begs the question, “Who was in charge of makeup and hair for John Travolta’s character?” Pushed to the limit by a rich, powerful, and ruthless crime lord, computer cracker Stanley (Hugh Jackman) joins in on one of the many heists to make billions of dollars from unused government funds. Along with the original concept of this underground cyber-community, Swordfish, the coding in this movie looks fairly authentic and visually appealing.

Read our review of Swordfish .

9. The Fifth Estate (2013)

Based on Julian Assange and his history of international government affairs, The Fifth Estate is a tedious retelling of a story behind this controversial creator of WikiLeaks. Teaming up with a colleague of his named Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl), Julian (Benedict Cumberbatch) creates a journalist organization to expose government crimes and shady dealings. While it’s not the best example of a hacker movie per se, the very real nature of the story is beyond intriguing and Cumberbatch gives a powerful performance.

Read our review of the Fifth Estate .

8. Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

The most action-packed of the movies on this list, Live Free or Die Hard is a wonderfully fun and exciting addition to the Die Hard franchise that qualifies for this list. Tasked with yet another run-of-the-mill mission, John McClane (Bruce Willis) brings in a young computer hacker for questioning but ultimately uses his skills against a greater foe that threatens to crumble American society by hacking the national computer infrastructure. While this movie isn’t exactly focused around the hacking aspect, the main villain played by Timothy Olyphant is a compelling character and a great example of what computer knowledge can do when in the wrong hands.

Read our review of Live Free or Die Hard .

7. Tron (1982)

Another 80s classic to add to the list, Tron brings an interesting, digital tale of adventure to life with some dated special effects and an electrified film score. Betrayed by an executive of the company he works for, computer engineer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is mysteriously transported inside the master control program after attempting to hack into it. While the special effects may be a bit silly in today’s world, the color palette and styling of the scenes is what makes this movie as special as it is.

6. Sneakers (1992)

Full of clever plot twists and turns, Sneakers is a classic take on the ‘get the team together’ trope of a good heist movie . Computer hacker Martin (Robert Redford) is tasked to test multiple companies’ security systems with his team of specialists, but is swindled into stealing a powerful hacking tool that brings forth a greater moral dilemma for our characters. While it’s mostly characterized by puzzles and mind games, this movie still brings a special quality to the list that thematically separates it from the others.

5. Blackhat (2015)

While not the strongest quality movie on the list, Blackhat brings more action and thrill to the sub-genre than expected. Furloughed on account of his hacking skills, Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) helps his American and Chinese counterparts hunt down a cyber-terrorist crime organization all around the world. Focusing on the cyber-connectivity of the world and the dangers of it, this movie does a good job of thrilling its audience with real-world applicable fears. The hacking is also cleverly visualized in this film by x-ray shots of computer parts and multiple lights traveling through the interior of the machines.

Read our review of Blackhat or check out our guide to the best Chris Hemsworth movies .

4. Hackers (1995)

With a plotline fairly similar to the narrative in Who Am I, Hackers is one of the more corny 90s nostalgia-bait pieces in the lineup. A young coding prodigy discretely returning to the world of coding after many years under close surveillance, Dade (Jonny Lee Miller) and his new group of hacker buddies must thwart a plot to frame them for an upcoming cyber-terrorist attack. Unique to this film, the coding sequences are creatively visualized as a large city of buildings made of code that must be located with proper time and efficiency.

3. Wargames (1983)

The oldest and most nostalgic movie on this list is Wargames ; an 80s classic that serves as a fine addition to the catalog of 80s sci-fi movies. A young video game and computer enthusiast named David (Matthew Broderick) unintentionally hacks into a military central computer thinking its a computer game, causing military mayhem at an international level. Since this is the most dated of the movies on this list, the hacking is portrayed as a very basic black and green screen with normal vernacular to keep the audience engaged.

2. Who Am I (2014)

A movie that could be summarized as if Fight Club was a German heist movie, Who Am I plays with existing movie tropes in a way that is original enough to individualize itself. Attempting to make a name for himself in the hacker community, Benjamin (Tom Schilling) joins with a group of tech masters to form a hacker group that strives to become the best of the best. What makes this film unique is the creative way it portrays the interactions between hackers in the online world: a subway car full of masked strangers with 3D text fields surrounding them and doors between rail cars representing firewalls and security measures.

1. The Matrix (1999)

One of the best Keanu Reeves movies , The Matrix is an action-packed hacker movie that transcends reality in an exciting way. Known for his way around a computer and a mysterious prophecy, Neo (Keanu Reeves) has his eyes opened to the truth that his entire life has been a simulation created by an AI hive-mind. Famous for its unique style and story, the hacking in this movie is a lot of zeros and ones on a screen but is gracefully translated into intricately choreographed action sequences with impressive special effects.

Read our review of the Matrix or check out our guide to the Matrix movies in order .

Connor Sheppard is an Oregon-grown entertainment writer for IGN with a love for pop culture and movies.

In This Article

Where to Watch

IGN Recommends

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

Hbo max’s ‘hacks’: tv review.

Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder play comedians on opposing sides of a generational gap in a new dramedy.

By Inkoo Kang

Television Critic

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Send an Email
• Show additional share options
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Tumblr
• Share on Whats App
• Print the Article
• Post a Comment

A mountain range, a multi-million-dollar fortune and a seemingly insurmountable generational gap divide the two female comedians at the heart of HBO Max’s half-hour dramedy Hacks . In her umpteenth year at her Vegas residency, Deborah Vance ( Jean Smart ) is a fading legend — picture all the tartness, workaholism and tragic personal history of Joan Rivers in her later years, but leggy and voluptuous. On the other side of the Sierra Nevadas is 20-something LA comedy writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder), whose career has been recently derailed by a bad tweet. Brought together by their mutual manager (co-creator Paul W. Downs) so that Ava can anonymously help Deborah clear the cobwebs from her material, the prickly pair will soon realize they’re more alike than they think — not that that helps them get along any better.

Related Stories

'snl' season 50 premiere kicks off on the campaign trail with maya rudolph, jim gaffigan, dana carvey, jean smart can't get a word in for 'snl' 50th- season premiere promo.

Smart has enjoyed a welcome career revival in the past few years, becoming a go-to supporting player in buzzy dramas like Fargo , Watchmen , Legion and Mare of Easttown, but her starring role here allows her to finally showcase her wild versatility. Along with its Vegas setting, Hacks takes place in the many fissures between Deborah and Ava, but series creators Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky are clearly more fascinated by their grande dame than their surly, street-stupid newbie. Smart repays their favor with a charmingly unpredictable performance full of sneaky barbs, naughty insouciance, aloof authority, mercurial changes in mood and sundry layers of repressed pain. You’ve seen versions of Deborah before, but Smart keeps you anticipating what she’ll bring to her character in each new scene.

Hacks finds Deborah suddenly on the outs with her casino-developer boss (Christopher McDonald), who wants her to vacate the stage on Friday and Saturday nights for a younger-skewing act. Desperation leads Deborah to hire Ava, who becomes a fish not only out of water but drying out in the desert heat (and smoke-filled interiors) of the Las Vegas Strip, where the older comedian somewhat inexplicably puts up her new employee. Pilot director Aniello ably channels Sin City’s surreal proportions and Liberacian excesses, but a more three-dimensional depiction of the show’s milieu might have incorporated more of the tan normalcy of Vegas beyond the Strip and its entertainers.

For a show by three creatives so associated with Broad City , Hacks is surprisingly ungenerous to its millennial character. Ava often feels more like a caricature of her generation than a real person: entitled, preachy, woker-than-thou. She’s a pill to be around — not just for the people around her, but for the audience too — making her most enjoyable scenes the ones where she discovers more about Deborah, such as why she won’t talk to her sister anymore, or where the mutual suspicions stop in her relationship with her feckless adult daughter (Kaitlin Olson).

There’s a schematic quality to the series’ foundation that Hacks mostly fails to outgrow in the first six of its 10 episodes. Deborah and Ava’s boomer-versus-millennial, heartland-versus-the-coasts, experience-versus-innovation tensions are constanrly telegraphed without becoming organic to the characters. Occasionally, their differences can lead to interesting discussions, like the women arguing whether, at this juncture, comedy can and should outgrow the setup-punchline structure of most jokes. But Ava’s primarily there as a sad-sack punching bag or the audience surrogate in uncovering the hidden depths of a comedy pioneer who might be tarnishing her legacy by selling questionable wares on QVC and retreating to a secluded mansion that Ava sneeringly compares to the Cheesecake Factory. Deborah and Ava eventually learn from each other, but only one half of that series mandate — Deborah’s journey in rediscovering the parts of herself she’d buried long ago to survive her industry — reaches poignancy.

Smart is convincing as a standup, but Hacks isn’t especially funny — partly because Deborah’s jokes are supposed to be dusty, partly because, at least in this case, it’s not terribly hilarious watching two comedians workshop jokes. Their overdetermined platonic romance — which joins The Devil Wears Prada and 2019’s Late Night in the too-small canon of women mentors and protégées gaining an appreciation for each other — makes the scenes with the supporting players a necessary respite. Carl Clemons-Hopkins embodies the daily frustrations and practiced blind eye required of Deborah’s right-hand man Marcus, but it’s the sly pragmatism and unself-conscious exuberance that Poppy Liu exudes in her brief scenes as Deborah’s personal blackjack dealer Kiki that provides Hacks with its few bursts of real joy.

Not that there isn’t a hint of glee when Deborah abandons Ava by the side of the road by boarding a helicopter she calls for when her Rolls Royce breaks down. Even in the desert, she’s a shark, moving up when she can’t move any further forward.

Full credits

Cast: Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Carl Clemons-Hopkins

Creators: Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, Jen Statsky

Airdate: Thursday, May 13 (HBO Max)

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

The end of ‘yellowstone’: what is known about the season 5b episodes, michael newman, ‘baywatch’ actor and a real lifeguard, too, dies at 67, ‘bad sisters’ season 2 trailer: garvey girls try to keep season one’s deadly intentions under wraps, ‘shogun’ co-creator justin marks inks new overall deal with fx, bethany joy lenz spent 10 years in a cult, and now she’s telling her story: “i’ve got a powerful cautionary tale”, ‘yellowstone’ trailer for new episodes ushers in dutton family civil war.

• Action/Adventure
• Children's/Family
• Documentary/Reality
• Amazon Prime Video

More From Decider

New Movies and Shows to Watch This Weekend: 'Outer Banks' Season 4 on...

'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' Comes To Digital, But When Will 'Beetlejuice 2'...

Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth Have Enthusiastic Sex Against a Wall in...

Jesse Palmer Teases 'The Golden Bachelorette' Episode 3, Gerry Turner's...

11 Best New Shows on Netflix: October 2024's Top Upcoming Series to Watch

Jimmy Kimmel Savagely Mocks Donald Trump For Once Defending His "Good...

Ellen DeGeneres Says She Should Have Told 'Ellen' Viewers "Go F***...

'The Perfect Couple' Ending Explained: Who Was the Killer?

Share this:.

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to copy URL

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hacks’ On HBO Max, Where A Popular Comedian Takes On A Young Writer To Help Make Her Material More Relevant

Where to stream:.

• Stream It Or Skip It

Stream It Or Skip It: 'Poppa's House' On CBS, Where Damon Wayans Sr. And Damon Wayans Jr. Co-Star In A Funny Father-Son Sitcom

Stream it or skip it: 'it's florida, man' on hbo, where crazy but true florida stories are reenacted by well-known comedy stars, stream it or skip it: 'whitstable pearl' season 3 on acorn tv, where a restaurant owner solves crimes in a tiny seaside town, stream it or skip it: 'scouting for christmas' on the hallmark channel, where a young girl tries to set her busy single mother up with a local baker.

Despite the fact that Jean Smart has been in TV viewers’ homes since  Designing Women debuted 35 (!) years ago, she continues to surprise with every role she takes on. And, whether she shows up as the governor on  Hawaii Five-0 or Mare’s mother in Mare Of Easttown , she leaves an impact. But she hasn’t starred in something for awhile. In Hacks , a comedy (produced by Mike Schur’s Fremulon) where she plays a Joan Rivers-like comedian who is a self-made superstar, she gives one of the best performances of her career. Read on for more.

HACKS : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The camera is situated behind comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) as she finishes a set at her residency at the Palmetto hotel in Las Vegas. We then follow her as she goes to her dressing room, talking to stagehands and others along the way.

The Gist: Deborah Vance is a legend who has been in the business for decades. She’s always working, despite reaching a level of success where she can take a private jet from Vegas to LA to peddle her jewelry line on QVC, then go back to her massive Vegas-area mansion.

Right before her 2500th show, Marty (Christopher McDonald), the owner of the Palmetto, has lunch with her, which is where he drops the bomb that he wants to book younger acts on Fridays and Saturdays. When he says he wants to book Pentatonix, she basically tells him to fuck off and storms out of the restaurant.

At the same time, a young comedy writer named Ava (Hannah Einbinder) has essentially been “cancelled” because of a misguided tweet. Her agent Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) can’t find her any work, but when his biggest client, Deborah, calls complaining about Marty cutting her appearances, he gets an idea. He knows Deborah needs to appeal to a younger audience, so he proposes to Ava that she take a job writing for Deborah, who until now has written all of her own material.

Ava, ever woke, scoffs, calling her the “QVC muumuu lady.” But when she desperately interrupts a former colleague’s lunch to ask if she’s hiring for her new how, she learns just how radioactive she is in the business right now. After an equally desperate boink with her Postmates delivery person, she reluctantly takes the interview.

One problem: Deborah has no idea Jimmy set this up. And when Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), her COO, tells her, she’s pretty angry. She feels she doesn’t need a writer, and when the interview starts, she realizes Ava hasn’t studied up on her career at all. For her part, Ava ditches politeness and tells her that she didn’t want to do this interview, anyway, and tells her why she agreed to it. That’s when Ava tells Deborah the tweet that got her in trouble. Deborah, who has been “cancelled” more times than she can count, intercepts Ava as she leaves to help her improve on the bad joke that made her toxic in Hollywood. Then Deborah hires her.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It feels like Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, the creators of  Hacks , more or less crafted Deborah’s character by doing a deep dive on Joan Rivers’ life, starting with the 2010 documentary about her, Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work .  Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

Our Take: The idea behind Hacks , that a comedian who has fought her way to the top — and continues to fight — mainly because she’s a woman connects with a young woman who feels work should be handed to her, is a tantalizing one to contemplate. Generational differences are just the tip of the iceberg that will be explored as the working and personal relationship between Deborah and Ava is developed.

There’s also the issue of how Deborah, much like Rivers, takes nothing for granted and doesn’t rest on her laurels because she knows what it was like for women in the business when she started. It’ll be a stark contrast to Ava’s feeling that she has captured the comedic voice of the 2020s and that show business should be handing her one opportunity after another. But then there’s also the idea of how Ava can get “cancelled” by one tweet when what happened to Ava “sounds like a Tuesday to me,” says Deborah.

But what we’re eager to see is how wearying the grind is getting for Deborah. It’s in those small moments, where she’s looking at herself in the mirror or eating alone with her dogs, that Smart’s fantastic performance has the most emotional impact. You can tell that, while she knows she’ll be in the battle for her career until the very end ( just like Joan was! ), the battles are weighing on her. Her ex-husband, whose death in the first episode shakes her, left her for her own sister. Her closest friends are her staff. She pads around her overly-decorated mansion with her dogs, mainly concerned about her next gig or joke. There aren’t a whole lot of characters like this on TV right now, and Smart nails the combination of drive and pathos that keeps Deborah going.

We’re not sure about Ava, though; through the first two episodes, she seems like yet another overprivileged millennial who overshares online. The obvious outcome of this first season is that, by hook or by crook, she’ll learn some of the fight that drove Deborah, and learn how she needs to take charge of her career and life so she won’t get cancelled again. Deborah, on the other hand, will — we guess — learn how to relate to the “youngs” through Ava.

But, aside from Ava’s advice to not use Anna Nicole Smith jokes anymore because “she’s long dead,” what will Deborah  really learn from Ava? Not sure. But we’re willing to watch and find out.

Sex and Skin: Like we said, Ava boinks her Postmates driver. But she’s really holding a candle for a former girlfriend.

Parting Shot: After hiring Ava, Deborah backs her Rolls up her very, very long driveway. In the background, we see the skyline of Las Vegas.

Sleeper Star: Carl Clemons-Hopkins is a calming presence as Marcus, and we’ll see how he factors into Ava and Deborah’s working relationship going forward. Kaitlin Olson also shows up as Deborah’s daughter; you don’t bring her onto a project without giving her more to do than the funny but short scene she got in the first episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: While we think Meg Stalter is funny as Jimmy’s inept secretary Kayla, the gags where she has no idea how to listen in on his calls without interrupting got a little old.

Our Call: STREAM IT.  Hacks  not only gives us a topic we don’t see all that much on TV right now, it gives Jean Smart a chance to shine in a lead role after years of standout supporting gigs (like she’s currently doing in  Mare Of Easttown ).

Should you stream or skip the genius dark comedy #HacksOnHBOMax on @hbomax ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) May 14, 2021

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream  Hacks  On HBO Max

Does ‘Yellowstone’ Return Tonight? Here’s When The Next New Episode of ‘Yellowstone’ Airs on TV

Noel Fielding’s ‘Great British Baking Show’ Antics Finally Go Too Far When He Ruins Nelly’s Caramel

Where Is Sara Haines On 'The View'?

Don't Look Now But 'Only Murders In The Building' Season 4 Is Turning Out To Be The Show's Best Season So Far

Snoop Dogg Blames Hoda Kotb's Candles After They're Caught In His Suspiciously Smoky Dressing Room On 'Today': "We're Feeling Really Good"

Bruce Campbell Initially Thought It Seemed "Odd" To Cast Julie Bowen In 'Hysteria' — Until He Realized "The Roots Of Comedy Are Pain, Suffering, And Torment"

‘Hacks’ Is a Thrilling Turn for Jean Smart: TV Review

By Daniel D'Addario

Daniel D'Addario

Chief TV Critic

• ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Review: Nicole Scherzinger Astonishes in Jamie Lloyd’s Remarkable Broadway Staging of the Andrew Lloyd Webber Musical 2 days ago
• ‘Apprentice’ Star Omarosa Manigault Newman Endorses Kamala Harris for President: ‘Donald Trump Has Been Defeated Before’ (EXCLUSIVE) 1 week ago
• Did Kamala Harris Do Enough to Convince Voters to Support Her Campaign on ‘The View’ and ‘Call Her Daddy’? 2 weeks ago

On her new show “ Hacks ,” Jean Smart plays a woman who has a difficult time adapting to a new era in the entertainment industry. It may be the first TV role this unbound and thrilling performer has taken that feels like a stretch.

After all, Smart — one of CBS’ “Designing Women” in the 1980s and now a prestige-TV favorite on “Fargo” and “Watchmen” — seems endlessly inquisitive about where her talent can take her. Gifted with exceptional timing and Sahara-dry delivery, Smart is aptly named; there’s a roving intelligence to her line readings, a sense that she’s finding levels of irony and shrewd wit even within the most elegant of scripts. And now, in an HBO Max streaming comedy that seems destined to be a zeitgeist hit, Smart gives a performance entirely without vanity as a woman who has had that fundamental quality of curiosity pushed out of her by show business. The action of the show is wondering whether Smart’s Deborah Vance will take her shot at wrenching it back.

Related Stories

New Live Music Data Suggests Cautious Optimism

On Set With 'Wizards Beyond Waverly Place': How Selena Gomez and David Henrie Are Rebooting Disney Magic for a New Generation

Deborah’s situation is familiar: After “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” this could credibly be said to be the second series about a figure whose life story looks a great deal like that of Joan Rivers. But while “Maisel” considers a comedian’s rise, “Hacks” assesses her uneasy reign. Deborah has a berth in Las Vegas, one she holds on to less by telling innovative jokes than by putting in the hours. She cracks wise about sex with aging men, about her body, about her fans. Like Rivers, she treats no booking as too small or too degrading, including hocking jewelry on home-shopping television; like Rivers, Deborah grew disillusioned after getting, and losing, a shot at a late-night show. Her comedy has become simply about the art of showing up: Her material is time-tested, and for an audience unconcerned with hipness, it works.

Popular on Variety

That audience is not necessarily growing, though, and isn’t attractive in an industry that increasingly values novelty. That’s how Ava ( Hannah Einbinder ) enters the series. A young anti-comedian who treats humor as a way to communicate her understanding of the world’s absurdities, Ava loses a Hollywood deal for making a tasteless joke online. She ends up getting hired to write material for Deborah. It should come as no surprise that a star whose work has been intended to claim space for herself looks with skepticism at someone who came up in a radically different industry. And yet Deborah and Ava’s relationship develops with both heart and surprising texture and richness.

That heart comes from both performers: In Deborah, Smart has a lead role worthy of her prodigious intellect and ferocious delivery. It’s apparent from the first that she’s found, in Ava, an adversary worth doing the honor of roasting. Deborah, as the saying goes, kids because she loves, and in Ava, she’s found someone she finds both utterly incoherent and occasionally worthy of the gift of her attention. To wit: Deborah mainly treats her daughter (Kaitlin Olson, brilliant as a lost nepotism case) with benevolent neglect, and barely notices her audiences many nights, delivering familiar and tired material. She extends the same incuriosity to Ava some of the time too. But when her eye happens to land on her young writer frenemy, Deborah is ablaze with a mad creative energy.

Deborah has missed out on opportunities, and defined herself by her resentment. Ava, decades younger, is practically as jaded. Einbinder’s expression of Ava’s insecurities and unease feels jagged-nerve raw. (Lacking a real creative outlet, Ava’s spirals with substances and sex exist, at least at first, in contrast to Deborah’s rigidity.) She’s trapped in a Hollywood that seems much more open to women in general than it was in Deborah’s heyday. That’s all the more galling, because it’s closed to Ava in particular.

“Hacks” is especially sharp and clever on the concept of cool — what it means to observe it from afar and not to have it. (This series is a novel next step for creators Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, all veterans of “Broad City,” a show that was plainly the product of much hard work but that often wore its brilliance offhandedly.) Nothing about Deborah is casual: She is a punishing employer and has an exaggerated personal aesthetic that requires constant upkeep. The attention to the specifics helps make the case for Deborah’s rigor, and the ways that rigor traps her. We see the painful, demanding recovery from plastic surgery in a midseason episode; we also see a great deal of a fussily decorated mansion, run by a full-time house manager (Carl Clemons-Hopkins, a perfectly pitched wit, joined by an always welcome Rose Abdoo as Deborah’s housekeeper), that comes to seem a bit like a prison.

These dubious rewards stem from a life devoted to work, but Deborah’s ability to work is now under threat: She has turned her misfortunes into a joke, and finds as she becomes a legacy act that her labor hasn’t been enough. And, attempting to restart her own derailed career, Ava seems uncertain of what kind of comedian or even person to be. She’s only working for Deborah because her career ended over a joke she doesn’t defend. When Deborah hears the one-liner for the first time, her instinct — driven by an energy she’s stopped bringing to the stage — is to workshop it, to fight for it and polish it.

It’s this relentlessness that “Hacks” exists to celebrate and to interrogate. Smart shows us the fervor and eagerness in Deborah’s push for the punchline: Trying to take the worst thing that’s ever happened to Ava and make it into art is not what the moment calls for, but when given the right partner, comedy is what Deborah does. This show would not work if Ava did not find something to admire in Deborah. But it’s at its most intriguing when Deborah finds something in Ava — something to pick apart, because Deborah treats analysis as akin to love.

To be a comedian, or any type of artist, is to exist at a remove from one’s own world, to treat it as an object of study rather than as home. “Hacks” asks what it means to do this, and what it means to try to find personal connection within the deeply individual, lonely world of a creative pursuit. Deborah and Ava don’t build whatever relationship they have despite mocking each other. They build it because of that, because they ultimately both love the craft of comedy, the grind of finding the laugh. Both have talent, but neither one is blessed with transcendent natural gifts of the sort Smart herself possesses; the challenge the show presents is that these two must slowly shift each other through the curse and blessing of their devotion to work. This excellent new series successfully argues that there is a virtue all its own in showing up and gutting it out — in being a hack.

“Hacks” premieres May 13 on HBO Max.

HBO Max. Ten episodes (six screened for review).

• Production: Executive Producers: Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, Michael Schur, David Miner, and Morgan Sackett.
• Cast: Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Carl Clemons-Hopkins.

More from Variety

Kamala Harris Says ‘My Presidency Will Not Be a Continuation of Joe Biden’s’ During Fox News Interview: ‘I Represent a New Generation of Leadership’

How Celebrity Reps Are Fighting the Flood of Unauthorized AI Content

Did Kamala Harris Do Enough to Convince Voters to Support Her Campaign on ‘The View’ and ‘Call Her Daddy’?

Marc Anthony Endorses Kamala Harris, Slams Trump for Disrespecting Latinos: ‘He Called Puerto Rico Dirty and Poor’

Why the Video Game Industry Can’t Shake Its Struggles

Bruce Springsteen Endorses Kamala Harris: ‘Donald Trump Is the Most Dangerous Candidate for President in My Lifetime’

More from our brands, jason isbell details solo tour.

Princess Diana’s Former Family Home in London Just Sold for $14.2 Million

A-Rod, Lore Put $942 Million in Escrow as Arbitration Looms

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

Night Court Video: Wendie Malick’s Return as Julianne Has Dan Terrified in First Season 3 Promo — Watch