by Cris Mora-Villa, Contributing Writer
When I think of contemporary filmmakers who will come to define American independent cinema of the 2020s, Cooper Raiff readily comes to mind. What I deem to be a quintessential pillar of Raiff’s work is how unafraid he is to embrace sincerity when exploring the inherent messiness of youth. With each passing project he continues to prove himself keenly adept at resonating with an audience while balancing his duties as a director, writer, editor, and actor to make understated and soulful films. It is an auteurial style that has carried over into his latest project, Hal & Harper.
This marks Raiff’s first foray into television following a loose trilogy of thematically tethered films. The series follows an unnamed single father (Mark Ruffalo) and his relationship to his co-dependent children Harper (Lili Reinhart) and Hal (Raiff) from adolescence through adulthood with Reinhart and Raiff portraying both the adult and child versions of Harper and Hal. The slight bend towards fantasy in (mostly) using adult actors to play Harper and Hal is a bold choice that succinctly encapsulates the emotionally taxing experience that is to follow. If Raiff’s films discuss themes of loneliness, reconciliation, and the weight of obligation, Hal & Harper explores those themes to their fullest possible potential. Cut down from its original ten episode run to only eight, Hal & Harper takes its time in fleshing out the core issues plaguing this family, in addition to the rest of the cast. The extended runtime gives Raiff adequate room to embrace the kind of slow cinema he would have certainly been inspired by to create far and away his most personal work yet.
Though Raiff does well in adapting to the miniseries format, Hal & Harper is very much a spiritual continuation of his previous movies, in the process resembling an elongated four and a half hour feature. That assertion requires a familiarity with Raiff’s preceding work, but that connection only further enhances Hal & Harper’s perennially evolving identity. The first of Raiff’s films was a short, titled Madeline & Cooper (2018), a rather modest film in its aesthetic. Even by 2018 standards, I was surprised by its visible commitment to evoking a mumblecore adjacent ambiance. Were Raiff himself not onscreen in the lead role, I would think this film was made over a decade prior. Madeline & Cooper is hardly a masterpiece, but what can be felt behind the camera is someone with a cogently defined perspective who wants to bring their vision to life with the limited resources available to them. The film’s very existence set the foundation for the cinematic territory Raiff would soon inhabit and watching Madeline & Cooper cemented for me the notion that there are few writer-directors working today who are actively evolving as quickly and as undauntedly as Raiff is now.
Raiff’s follow-ups in Shithouse (2020)and Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) brought about an evolutionary shift in his artistic trajectory. Madeline & Cooper would ultimately serve as a proof of concept film, with much of its material repurposed and making its way into Shithouse. With some experience under his belt, Raiff would develop a needed clarity on how to mesh his film’s coming-of-age themes with his comedic sensibilities. Shithouse attunes its focus to the character of Alex, a lonely college freshman struggling to find independence after moving away from his close-knit family. Cha Cha Real Smooth follows Andrew, a recent college graduate caught between paths for what to do in the next chapter of his life. Both films similarities are evident on the basis of a blanket synopsis, but the texture of their respective narratives contains a notable change which speaks to Raiff’s progression into Hal & Harper.
For all the improvements made with Shithouse, it remains Raiff’s most solipsistic film. Despite having a co-lead in Dylan Gelula, its perspective is confined to Alex. Madeline & Cooper goes out its way to make its leads an evenly matched pair when it comes to screentime. It is the only instance where Shithouse takes a regressive step from Raiff’s short film instead of improving upon it. Cha Cha Real Smooth makes no such misstep. Andrew is that movie’s protagonist, but there is space for the film’s ensemble cast to have their own perspectives. Characters are not limited to solely existing in Andrew’s world. That noted act of progression signals Raiff widening his scope to continuously dig deeper and further develop the relationship dynamics between the characters he writes. By tapping into his own experiences and imbuing such levels of personhood and character into his work, Raiff is able to continue this pattern with Hal & Harper,
Raiff returns for the fourth time to star in his own project. His portrayal of Hal carries with him an attitude reminiscent of the versions of Cooper, Alex, and Andrew that we’ve come to know. Where he deviates from that archetype is in his ability to somehow be even more earnest than in his other performances already were. Reinhart is earnest in a different way, but their combined fragility conveys an innocence that Raiff had yet to explore so effortlessly. Flashbacks to their childhood takes the viewer to the mid-2000s with Harper and Hal at nine and seven years-old respectively. I’ve long believed that children of a certain age can be very intuitive and aren’t always given the credit for doing so. I imagine Raiff thinks something similar judging from how emotionally unprotected young Harper and Hal are allowed to be for the entirety of their scenes throughout the series. Raiff’s physical onscreen discomfort speaks volumes in relaying Hal’s anxieties when surrounded by a room full of first graders. Harper’s stoic but wounded exterior tells a different story tied to her own perspective, but those emotions are expounded on in the home, a vital ingredient of the show.
Pacing is something that hardly ever comes to mind when thinking about TV. The saturated blend of episodes melding into one conglomeration of plot is more commonplace now than ever before. That’s what makes its antithetical emphasis here so refreshing with episodes being so distinct from one another. Credit is owed to Raiff and director-editor McKinley Carlin who split the series’ editing duties. The editing in Raiff’s other films often takes a lax and nondescript approach, a byproduct of a set tone that rarely pushes against its own boundaries. Hal & Harper’s tone however dials down the jovial leisure and injects a jaded, emotional violence bordering on frenetic. The lack of linearity episode-to-episode also attributes to the instability present in these characters’ lives, as if memory itself is placed in a stranglehold by the weight of their unprocessed trauma. It is in these shifts that dissuaded any creeping notions I may have had that Raiff might just be spinning his wheels. It would be one thing for Raiff to continuously play affable and immature young men who love their parents and never evolve from there, but that’s not the version of Hal & Harper he presents us with.
I’ve come to notice how many films in 2025 stress the significance of the family home cinematically. Without naming every film that comes to mind, Sentimental Value, Presence, and Die My Love are just a few examples which capture the spectrum of feelings that can be contained by four walls and a roof. No TV series from 2025 lives up to that standard the way that Hal & Harper does. Like any home, there are specific feelings which persist in the lasting memories for its inhabitants. Mixed within those feelings is an incapable tension persisting through every orifice of the house. Every sighting of Harper and Hal’s mom (Michelle Pascarella) is rare and for the viewer feels reminiscent to that of a specter. The show is not quick to explain how Mark Ruffalo’s father character became a single parent, but that ambiguity rests heavily in the mind of the viewer. Even heavier though is her absence in the lives of our main trio, which is what the house comes to symbolize more than anything else. Both as a literal reminder of what no longer is and a foundational block that continuously affects present day versions of Harper, Hal and their dad. They all exist and can function in the world but struggle to do even that.
The people who surround Harper, Hal and their father all bear the brunt of their tumultuous past in one way or another. Be it in any of their romantic relationships or in the company of friends, there is some level of hurt imposed on the people they are shown to care about. Hal’s his new girlfriend Abby (Havana Rose Liu), his best friend Kalen (Christopher Meyer), the father’s girlfriend Kate (Betty Gilpin), Harper’s girlfriend Jesse (Alyah Chanelle Scott) and co-worker/love interest Audrey (Addison Timlin). While these additional characters and their story threads are, in practice, meant to offer character development for our leads, these are not characters limited to supporting roles in someone else’s story. They are allowed the agency to vocalize their wants and needs, decide what to forgive, and recognize how they feel in relation to Harper, Hal, or their father. In a series loaded with substantive depictions of human relationships, this facet strikes me as the most evocatively human example of confident storytelling.
A recurring commonality in Raiff’s work which I’m especially drawn to is his handling of emotional catharsis. There is no artificiality to be found in the climatic resolutions of his films. Raiff’s prose is never not reassured, deftly melding the themes of the film with the practicality of human conversation to create an affecting viewing experience. Little is needed other than the characters engaged in a dialogue charged with a quiet intimacy. The culmination of Hal & Harper makes a slight deviation from that norm, shifting its own reality to shatter the illusion upholding Reinhart and Raiff’s portrayal of young Harper and Hal. It is an exceptionally raw payoff that cannot exist without a heightened premise and the trio of exceptional performances from Raiff, Ruffalo and especially Reinhart. The core ethos of what Raiff is exploring with this show is the internal complexity of living in life’s liminal spaces. Where fully grown adults are left acting like children and the kids are forced to grow up faster than they should have. He constructs a space of emotional stuntedness spawned from a maternal void that seemingly cannot be filled, seemingly. Raiff is an optimist at the end of the day, so it should be no surprise that when all is said and done, his thesis on a humanitarian level is: “Maybe the kids will be alright.”
Hal & Harper was distributed by MUBI, a streaming service known for curating a diverse catalog of films from around the globe. MUBI’s recent push to broadcast TV puts Raiff in close company with a bevy of influential filmmakers. Though I’ve yet to watch all of the shows on MUBI, they share an avant-garde leaning energy that feels antithetical to the current streaming landscape. Raiff has publicly spoken of the challenges he faced in selling Hal & Harper to various networks, studios often declining citing the series’ inaccessibility. That reaction doesn’t shock me, but I’m inclined to believe it goes deeper than an off-kilter premise being so difficult to wrap one’s head around that a show becomes unmarketable. What their passing on the series signals to me is a staunch negation of creativity when it cannot fit into a digestible mold akin to the likes of, I Love LA . My feelings on that show aside, Hal & Harper sets a high watermark for upholding a standard of what television can be when artistic license is left unrestrained.
Rating: Loved It
Hal & Harper is currently streaming on MUBI
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