With ‘From Scratch,’ Netflix cooks up its version of a Lifetime weepie
‘From Scratch’ is an ambitious indie drama about family, friends and lovers that follows one woman’s search for her long-lost sister. Star Amy Schumer’s performance as the star-crossed woman whose lost past is revealed on her mother’s side is a standout moment.
Amy Schumer’s career has exploded since her debut in the sketch comedy group Girls, and recently she earned a Golden Globe award for comedy for the HBO special, “Inside Amy Schumer”; a Screen Actors Guild award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series for Netflix’s comedy-drama “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend;” and a Critics’ Choice Award for “Veep” for a career of comedy since its freshman run on HBO. Now Schumer is returning to television with a series she hopes will inspire others to pursue creative careers.
Netflix today debuted “From Scratch,” a 10-episode, half-hour dramedy for original voice actors based on the work of Amy Schumer’s real-life mother, who wrote, directed and starred in the HBO comedy “Louder than Words.” It’s Schumer’s attempt at a Lifetime Lifetime movie, and the show’s most ambitious, and certainly the least easy to define.
“From Scratch” is a portrait of a woman who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s in the Bronx, a place where life is defined by the past and present and the future. The drama follows a middle-class woman named Ellen who moves to New York City with her childhood best friend and sister for her sister’s college grad trip. There Ellen must help her struggling mother navigate a time in her life when her own is changing rapidly and she’s trying to reconcile the past and the present.
The series (currently shooting in Los Angeles) is helmed by director and writer Amy Heckerling, but Heckerling is also co-producer. On a recent call, Heckerling said that for this show, she and Schumer are both “very hands-on,” but with the former director, who also co