The Eddy is a French–American musical drama miniseries, set in Paris.
Damien Chazelle loves jazz. His first feature film, Whiplash, is set inside the pressure cooker of a conservatory with a sonic drill sergeant for a jazz band instructor. Whiplash wonders: Is perfection worth the emotional cost? His second film, the Oscar-winning La La Land, is a romantic look at young aspiring artists in a gauzy Los Angeles where lovers break out in song and dance beneath the lamp posts.
For his new Netflix series, “The Eddy,” Chazelle shifts to a grittier milieu, a down-market Paris jazz club and the run-down public housing that rings the city. The cast is as multicultural and 21st century urban. The Eddy is owned by Elliot (Andre Holland), an African American trumpeter (who once recorded for Blue Note) and his friend Farid (Tahar Rahim). Fronting the house band is Maya (Joanna Klug), a vocalist adrift in the European Union.
Elliot’s teenage daughter Julie (Amandia Stenberg) is visiting. But music, family and friendship aren’t the whole story. Drama is introduced by the mobsters who lent Farid money. The club is a low-margin business but no excuses are accepted. They want their money back—now or else.
Along with a change in setting comes a change in style. Chazelle’s films were tightly composed; with “The Eddy,” he indulges in the luxury of a leisurely pace as Elliot waits for success (or luck). Shot in grimy-lensed digital, “The Eddy” meanders across the sooty streets of a Paris that has seen better days. The show is a bit like a good jazz combo on an off night.
