RDJ Really Hammed it Up On ‘The Sympathizer’

By Chris Revelle | TV | May 29, 2024 |

By Chris Revelle | TV | May 29, 2024 |

Max’s The Sympathizer, the Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar-created miniseries adaptation of the novel of the same title, is a story about the Captain (Hoa Xuande) navigating the tricky life of a double agent. Doubles, mirroring, and split hearts are The Sympathizer’s main motifs, down to the Captain’s heritage as the child of a Vietnamese woman and a white man of unknown identity, an oft-referenced source of discrimination and grief. The Captain’s face, high-cheeked and handsome, is commented on for his bright eyes. Xuande presents the Captain as someone whose wheels are always turning and whose eyes are always scanning the room and the people to figure out what he should say or do next.

The Captain is a communist spy who infiltrated the South Vietnamese Secret Police in Saigon and passed information to his North Vietnamese compatriots. The Vietnam War is unfolding, and the North is sure to invade Saigon soon. The Captain’s two childhood friends, Bon and Man, represent the divided loyalties the Captain feels; Bon is a boisterous bruiser with a passionate hatred of communists and Man is a reserved dentist who works as the Captain’s superior within the ranks of communist spies in Saigon. The General, wealthy, avuncular, and stubborn, is the Captain’s direct superior in the Secret Police. When the show begins, he’s attempting to organize an evacuation of Saigon for his people and their families. The recursive introductory arc of the first couple of episodes places the Captain in a situation with echoes he will face repeatedly throughout the series: to maintain his cover as a loyal member of the Secret Police, he must commit acts against his communist brethren and his beliefs. In the first episode, the Captain struggles to contain himself as a communist spy is captured and tortured in front of him, the spy’s eyes locked on the Captain’s as he holds back tears.

It’s in this torture scene that we meet Claude, our first of several buffoonish white antagonists played by Robert Downey Jr. All of the RDJ characters involve some kind of physical transformation, but Claude’s is arguably the most extensive: wrinkles crowd in, the dark hair becomes nothing-blonde curls, and the eyes are an uncanny blue-green. Claude is a CIA ghoul that takes a grim and venal pleasure in the wet work he’s sent to do. He’s in Vietnam, haggling the General down on how many seats he can get on the few planes out of Saigon. Claude presents himself as a mentor of sorts for the Captain and brings him into his web of intrigue as an asset. Downey brings an aged huskiness into his voice and growls Claude’s lines in a low rumble. Claude isn’t so much a character as he is a representation or an archetype; men of his brutish measure have always inhabited America’s imperial mechanisms. Claude isn’t ha-ha funny, but there’s a satirical comment on America’s amoral calculus as it maintains its empire.

Once the story follows the Captain to America where he continues his spycraft, we meet Professor Robert Hammer, a grand fetishizer of East Asian cultures who teaches at a college the Captain visits. Robert is a kimono-wearing asshole who’s disappointed the college is shutting down the Orientalism department he chairs. Robert presents himself as a mentor of sorts for Captain and brings him into his web of scholarly racism as a student. Downey does a gay voice and lisps Robert’s lines with maximum hand-fluttering. Robert isn’t so much a character as he is a representation or an archetype; men of his small-minded nature have always inhabited America’s scholastic halls. Robert isn’t ha-ha funny, but there’s a satirical comment on the dehumanizing effects of fetishization and racist scholarship in all his mortifying displays.

The pattern continues: “Napalm” Ned Godwin is a Congressman with a striking resemblance to Jeremy Irons, Niko Damianos is a riff on Apocalypse Now-era Francis Ford Coppola, an unnamed French (?) man with a prodigious beard stalking out of a Vietnamese house; these men represent the various faces and forms of imperialism and bigotry in different sectors of the world. With RDJ acting as each representative, we get the sense of interchangeable and banal evil everywhere, of a world so thoroughly dominated by colonialism that it seeps into every facet. RDJ’s archetypes are the most overt examples of satire on the show and it makes each sneering white man in this mold look ridiculous and clownish. The Sympathizer is telling us that as absurd as these men are, they are dangerous bigots capable of lasting harm.

I really like all of that, or at least I like it on paper. Where The Sympathizer wobbles is in execution. There’s a scene where four different RDJ goons sit down with the Captain to have dinner at a restaurant and it hits all at once that not only are these archetypes linked by their mission, but they’re literally linked by cooperation. It’s a statement on how these different facets intersect and combine to oppress others, but it gets lost under the giddy spectacle of RDJ dressed up in wigs and talking to himself. Their lines in this scene are mainly excuses to have one RDJ wink at the other. With each of them, RDJ turns the buffoonery way up, and while that has some satirical value, it becomes distracting. Playing each of these antagonists with maximal tics begins to feel self-indulgent, especially when there are four of them together at dinner. The Sympathizer goes to great lengths to ridicule these types of men and the ideology they represent, but in giving so much time, space, and energy to these clowns, RDJ goes beyond stealing the show, he swallows it whole.

The Sympathizer is a different show in the time we spend without an RDJ character on screen. It’s still heightened and arch in its sensibilities, but it focuses on the trials and travails of the Captain and the broader struggle of immigrants in America. There’s still satire, but it doesn’t overtake the compelling and thorny tale of the Captain walking the tightrope of a double agent. Xuande gets to breathe and inhabit the screen more fully, unchallenged by the RDJ circus. There’s always a moment or two when the Captain undercuts or embarrasses the RDJ doofuses and it’s very satisfying to watch. Still, all of that could’ve existed without the distracting scenery-chewing. Perhaps it’s a hat on a hat to both play all these antagonists and play each of them like a cartoon creature. Maybe just one of those would’ve been enough or keep them all, but turn their elaborate performances down. As-is, RDJ pulls focus in a story that shouldn’t belong to white men.

The Sympathizer is a darkly comedic drama with a lot on its mind. The Captain’s struggle with himself is compelling, well-acted stuff that connects geopolitics to personal consequences. As many spies are, the Captain is a cipher and much of him remains unknown by the end of the series. With so much time spent watching Robert Downey Jr caper about, I wonder how much deeper we could’ve known the Captain if we weren’t so wrapped up in the clowns that torment him.