But timing aside (Inside was released last month, as many US cities returned to pre-pandemic capacities), Burnham’s special feels, finally, like a compelling, discernible reflection. Numerous screen projects have attempted to grapple with the collective trauma of the past year and arrived half-baked, myopic.
It’s also the only piece of art about lockdown that I’ve actually enjoyed watching, as it captures something near-universal about the enervating, jittery, fractured experience of the last year, in which our digital lives far outpaced our IRL ones, at least for those fortunate enough to stay home.
It’s intensely personal, with Burnham – or, at least, his onscreen avatar – growing pale and twitchy as his mental health reaches an “all-time low” heightened by the overwhelm of being a person online. The label “comedy special” doesn’t really describe Inside, an hour-and-a-half collection of songs, bits, monologues and meta footage of Burnham filming in his attic room whose cohesion splinters and spirals along with his depression over the course of a year.
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