Did Aubrey Plaza Just Inadvertently Pull an Apple TV+ Flop Back From the Brink?

Yesterday, while interviewing Aubrey Plaza for her Good Hang podcast, Amy Poehler gave Plaza the ideal, supportive outlet to speak for the first time about the death of her husband, director Jeff Baena. As Tori wrote, Plaza smartly used the podcast to control the narrative, rather than being cornered on the red carpet by an aggressive entertainment reporter with a mic and prying questions.

By mid-morning, nearly every entertainment outlet online had picked up the story, which may have created an odd, unintended benefit for Apple TV+. In talking about her grief, Plaza compared it to The Gorge:

Did you see that movie The Gorge? It’s like an alien movie with Miles Teller. In the movie, there’s, like, a cliff on one side and then there’s a cliff on the other side and then there’s a gorge in between and it’s filled with all these monster people that are trying to get them. And I swear, when I watched it, I was, like, ‘That feels like what my grief is like’ — or what grief could be like. At all times, there’s, like, a giant ocean of awfulness that’s, like, right there, and I can see it. And sometimes, I just want to, like, dive into it and be in it. And then sometimes, I just look at it. And then sometimes, I’m just trying to get away from it. But it’s always there. It’s just always there. And the monster people are trying to get me like Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy.”

I skipped The Gorge when it came out, despite the presence of two huge stars in Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. The reviews, including our own, weren’t particularly good, and Apple TV+ has rarely been successful at marketing its streaming movies. But hearing Plaza describe it was the first time I felt any real interest in watching.

I wasn’t alone. Over the last 24 hours, “The Gorge” has been the fourth-biggest trending term on Google’s entertainment charts, ahead of Tom Sandoval (whose America’s Got Talent performance was slammed by Simon Cowell) and Ainsley Earhardt, who was ribbed by the President on Fox News for her relationship with Sean Hannity.

In fact, Apple’s streaming charts this morning show The Gorge — released way back in February — as the fourth most-watched title on the service, behind new episodes of Chief of War, Smoke, and The Foundation.

It’s an impressive surge for a film that barely made a ripple earlier this year, but it also reflects a collective desire not only to empathize with Plaza in her loss but to seek out a film that might help us process grief. I don’t know if the movie actually speaks to loss — I still haven’t watched it — but we’re all searching for something that helps us feel seen in our grief.

And maybe Poehler was also right on her podcast when she suggested that the farther apart one’s eyes are, the more beautiful they are.