‘Cunk on Cinema’ Netflix Review: Philomena Cunk’s Hilariously Clueless Guide to Film History

Philomena Cunk, the hapless TV presenter played by British comedian Diane Morgan, is back with another of her peculiar educational series, this time turning her not particularly perceptive gaze toward the History of Cinema. Having previously tackled subjects such as the Earth and Life, Cunk now sets out to cover the medium’s 130-year history. Perhaps a little less inspired, or simply more repetitive, than its predecessors, this latest installment nevertheless takes us through what turns out to be a surprisingly coherent and logically structured introduction to film history, albeit one delivered by someone who seems to have only the vaguest idea what she’s talking about.

Across six episodes, Cunk does exactly what the title promises: she takes us through the history of the seventh art, from its invention and the rise of silent cinema to the differences between European and American filmmaking, the birth of Hollywood, the arrival of sound, and the various movements, landmark films, major figures and styles that have shaped the medium over the decades, right up to the present day. She approaches each subject, and her interviews with experts, with her trademark combination of deadpan delivery, mock bewilderment and complete misunderstanding. If anything, her greatest talent here is her ability to get people’s names spectacularly wrong. Yet beneath all the nonsense, the journey she follows is not so different from the kind of standard, chronological overview of film history that a teacher might offer to a group of high school students.

The interviews have always been among the funniest elements of the Philomena Cunk shows, but this time around, even more than in previous installments, it’s pretty obvious that most of the people sitting across from her know they’re taking part in a comedy routine. Or, at the very least, they’re remarkably good at pretending they don’t. The lineup includes plenty of professors, critics and academics, alongside better-known names such as director Michael Bay, actor Benedict Cumberbatch and screenwriter Steven E. de Souza. They all respond to Cunk’s invariably idiotic questions with varying degrees of feigned surprise and barely concealed irritation (which, in a few cases, doesn’t seem entirely feigned).

The comedy rarely reaches the heights of some of the previous entries in the Cunk on… series, but it works well enough as a genial device for Charlie Brooker to take us on this straightforward yet effective tour of film history. Every now and then, the show ventures into sharper territory, touching on issues surrounding the film industry and its history, from artificial intelligence and sexual abuse to racism and other longstanding problems in and around the seventh art. Most of the jokes, however, revolve around the simple pleasure of mangling directors’ and actors’ names («Marvin Scorsese,» «Robert Redfuck») or getting film titles hilariously wrong. The Jazz Singer becomes The Jizz Slinger, while Battleship Potemkin is transformed into Batshit Pumpkin, among other linguistic atrocities.

Some of the gags are genuinely amusing («Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station has spoilers in the title,» she observes), as is her question to a film expert about whether you need to watch the 2,000 movies that came before 2001: A Space Odyssey in order to understand it. Plenty of others, though, barely raise more than a smile. The best moments come when Cunk suddenly launches into one of her supposedly personal anecdotes, prompted by whatever subject happens to be under discussion but bearing little or no relation to it. As in the previous series, these bizarre detours, usually involving some ridiculous story about a friend or relative, often end up being the highlights. A few of them here are downright hilarious.

Thanks to those occasional flashes of inspired absurdity and Morgan’s wonderfully charismatic screen presence, the adventures of the intrepid, utterly clueless Philomena Cunk continue unabated. She’s still happily marching toward the next cliff, apparently unaware that there’s a drop ahead.