Government Cheese TV review — Wes Anderson meets the Coen brothers in tongue-in-cheek morality tale

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An odd new series on Apple TV+ bemuses before it even begins, thanks to its title, Government Cheese. It refers to the processed food that was distributed monthly to welfare recipients in postwar America, but here becomes a metaphor for being inventive and resourceful with the little one has.

The 10-part series follows the Chambers, a family of modest means but big dreams living in Southern California in the late 1960s. It starts with the return of patriarch Hampton (David Oyelowo) after his latest stint in prison. Having found religion on the inside, he comes home to discover that his wife Astoria (Simone Missick) and two teen sons have largely lost faith in him. But Hampton is an eternal optimist and ingenious innovator. Not one to idly sit in his cell, he spent his sentence inventing a snazzy self-sharpening drill, on which he pins his hopes of winning back his family and redeeming his sins.

Instead, Hampton finds himself slipping back to his old thieving ways after ending up in debt to an unapologetically brutal Canadian gang. Before long, he takes a detour from the “righteous path” that leads him to a safe in the local synagogue.

Government Cheese has a touch of the Coen brothers, with its tongue-in-cheek morality tale that embeds old myths and biblical parables within modern America. The bright, picture-book aesthetic and arch tone, meanwhile, are clearly inspired by Wes Anderson. Hampton’s two sons could be distant relatives of the Tenenbaums: Einstein (Evan Ellison) is a spacey savant who’s less interested in an offer from Harvard than learning how to pole vault while Harrison (Jahi Di’All Winston) is a serious boy with a deep reverence for the Native American Chumash people.

The whimsy can sometimes approach self-indulgence. But there’s something to be said about a story centring on a Black family in 1960s America that’s defined by amusing absurdity rather than the harsh realities of inequality. Here, Black life is full of aspiration, imagination and idiosyncrasy rather than only collective oppression.

While the series is refreshingly free from the weight of politics, it can lack coherent shape or structure. Built on moods rather than narrative, it meanders through a shaggy plot that feels secondary to the surreal scenes and digressions. But Government Cheese is a show that takes after its erring protagonist: flaws aside, you can’t fault the creativity and ambition.

★★★☆☆

On Apple TV+ from April 16