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Published at 4:27pm
Published at 4:25pm
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The new HBO series Tell Me You Love Me (Sun 9) could be the most sexually explicit show in cable history, but it’s equally notable as perhaps the most minimalist drama the medium has ever produced: Music, opening credits and even the characters’ jobs have all been dispensed with in order to maintain an ultratight focus on the relationships of three couples (one each in their twenties, thirties and forties) who are working through their issues with the same therapist (Jane Alexander). “It’s trying to understand two people who have made a commitment to each other and the question of how they stay together and stay in love,” says Cynthia Mort, who created the series and wrote half of the first season’s ten episodes. “Every creative decision was about how to continue this voyeuristic, intimate feeling that I wanted.”
Although Mort hoped to make her show as easy to identify with as possible by removing background elements, some viewers may find it gives them an idea of what to expect in their own relationships: In many ways, the series is telling the story of one partnership at three different stages simultaneously. Mort, who also cowrote the new Jodie Foster movie The Brave One, is coy about how many of those stages she’s experienced herself. “Writing is always a combination of what you’ve seen and what you feel, and somehow you have to put that together and make it universal,” she says. “Or at least attempt to.”
