User reviews

Hal and Harper is definitely an interesting premise that I wasn't too sure about when it was first announced, however it's since grown on me and I adore it. It had happy and sad moments that involve both Hal and Harper and how their childhood has affected them as adults. Harper just trying to find her place and Hal trying to be an adult is comedic and heartfelt at the same time. The only part that I'm still not completely sure about was Lili and Cooper playing their childhood selves. The pair do an amazing job but it's still unnerving to see two adults in a room full of kids but I guess that's the point. I would recommend this show to people definitely especially if you're a Lili Reinhart fan!"

They say 'holding hands is more important than crashing,' and in Cooper Raiff's messy, saccharine, beautiful, and self-aware series, Hal & Harper-less a show and more a feeling-you'll get a raw, bittersweet taste of just how true that is. It's delivered by characters stripped of their halos and laid bare, as Cooper Raiff's brand of bittersweetness Cha-Cha Real Smooth right over you.

Before you dive in, ditch the cynical quips. Unless your spirit's a brick wall, incapable of a raw whimper, hit 'off.' Otherwise, prepare to be gently moved by a story you think you know, handled with immense grace. In less capable hands, this could've drowned in melodrama, a real snooze-fest. But Cooper Raiff and crew, boosted by amazing performances, kick it way past its "seen-it-before" script.

Character Dives 1. Hal's Heart: Cooper Raiff, as Hal, injects a refreshing dose of himself into the familiar indie archetype. He's the ever-present brother, a sweet subversion of the usual dynamic. He'll grill Harper about her phone calls, a move some might call "overprotective" or "butthurt snob." But honestly, who gives a damn in this cynical world?

2. Ruffalo's Raw Grief: Mark Ruffalo is laid utterly bare as the single, grief-stricken dad, clinging to Nietzsche's abyss. For him, shower time is mostly pissed-off grief and anxious contemplation. Sure, he even has "SAFE" sex with a hooker, but it's undeniably sad. You'll feel pity and want to hug him, especially after Episode 6 where his grief is like his second skin.

3. Harper's Heartbreak: Lili Reinhart's Harper is a perennial misfit, a "slimeball" at times, yet with a fragile heart. Her dad and brother top her "FAVORITES" contacts. Like any normal human, she finds her own bathroom solitude, doing her "usual thing" (haha, masturbating). With sapphic relationships brewing, she also carries immense grief. Exquisitely beautiful, fragmented moments, like her imagining her baby brother in the bathtub, subtly reveal memory as a fluid, unpredictable beast.

Luckily, Hal (Cooper Raiff) is spared any bathroom-based existential ponderings. My theory? He'd be too busy "self-caring with his pecker," brainstorming, doomscrolling, or sparring with an arthouse snob. LOL.

It was genuinely funny when Hal, bruised from seeing his Asian chick with another guy, picks a fight and gets beaten. And I absolutely loved the "Elephant Man" reference. Of course, RIP David Lynch-I hope he's enjoying cherry pie and damn fine coffee wherever he is.

Another favorite cinematic nod is Cooper's desperate "Mission Impossible" movie night failing as Ruffalo and Betty Gilpin doze off and Reinhart looks bored. Cooper's raw reaction is precisely mine; my recent F1 marathons left me feeling the same way.

For literary nods: from Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (seriously, read it if you love books, or check out the Netflix adaptation) to a sharp Sylvia Plath name-drop. Nothing says sibling intimacy like shared existential dread and literary flair.

Also, The episodes just start-no picturesque setups, just immediate, unvarnished momentum. The sound design is expertly amplified too.

The "School Stuff" & Downside: While Raiff and Lili Reinhart "cosplaying" as kids might be "cringe" for some, Raiff somehow makes it cool, avoiding typical Hollywood clichés and even finding magic in school conversations. He ditches flashy timelines for raw honesty, avoiding Milking the "I WAS THERE, I FEEL SEEN" pandering.

The downside: The tidy full circle in the last two episodes might be an "OMG FEELING" for some. I felt they wasted too much time (the Indian friend's house detour, music overkill). The non-linear storytelling is its strength and slight downfall, sometimes strangling itself. I personally enjoyed the approach, but a bittersweet ending would have been preferable to the Hollywood "TADA, Baby!" and overly convenient coincidences.

Nevertheless, this series might not be for everyone, but it's largely impressive. Even by indie standards, I highly recommend watching it! There's genuinely something for everyone, including some nice gags. I particularly enjoyed the writing at Hal's friend's granny's funeral-though I'd hoped for more gallows humor! I'm really excited to see what Cooper Raiff does next.

Great movie .. The sorrow they feel passes to the audience.. The cast is perfect.. But the musics and background sounds are exhausting.. So loud and unrelated weird noise crowd. And the time layers very hard to follow.. Watching should be easy. All the series long, try to understand when was this, was it before or after..

Hal & Harper isn't just a show-it's an experience. From the very first episode, I felt pulled into a deeply personal and emotional world. The series blends memory, trauma, and reality in a way that's both poetic and haunting. The transitions between scenes and timelines are executed with such precision and feeling, it's like watching thought and emotion unfold on screen.

The dialogue is a highlight-raw, honest, and beautifully vulnerable. It's rare to find writing that feels this real. I felt seen, understood, and strangely comforted by the characters' openness. Harper's arc especially resonated with me-her longing, her silence, and her need for safety are portrayed with stunning depth.

The visual symbolism, like the scenes of adult Harper and Hal attending school, spoke volumes about grief and emotional stagnation. It's subtle, but incredibly powerful once you catch it.

In short, this show doesn't just tell a story-it feels it. Hal & Harper is for anyone who loves introspective, emotionally layered storytelling. It stays with you long after it ends.

Hypnotised by the strong visual language and creative story structure about young adult siblings living on fragmented memories of a mother who abandon them at an early age, leaving their bipolar father to bring them up. The story picks up with surprising news from their father (another brilliant performance by Mark Ruffalo) that unconsciously triggers the dominos to fall, as each one struggles to deal with their own dilemma, but also attempting to be there for each other. Creator, Cooper Raiff, not only plays Hal, but wrote and directed this powerful series of a fractured family unit dealing with the dismantled past while rebuilding a blurry future...

I don't know what to think about this series. It is just the kind of thing I like...drama, character development, a picture of life. But I didn't get that. Just fragments. The acting is great. Great directorial debut. It was just discombobulated for me. Want to emphasize...the story is poignant, but in the end I'm just weirded out.

Actually, I don't understand someone gives a bad review for this series.. recently, I have never seen a sincere honest and deep tv series. It is about post tramvas of a family and everything seems real and not calculated. I feel in this way and I am really mortified. This production makes me thinking about myself and I find myself in my inner journey.. acting i: also very very good.. one negative part for me the flashback period 2009 sometimes it is boring and the idea there is good but it is better to shorten it if it is not contributed to the bigger picture.

I had a wild ride with this one. For the first few episodes i didn't quite understand the tone or style, even though I had read into the kind of aesthetic premise that was centered in a lot of the articles about it.

Basically, the big odd choice here that makes it stand out is that the lead adult characters play themselves in a variety of different eras of their lives prior to "the present" which i suppose is probably 2025, going all the way back to elementary school.

This can be a tiny bit disorienting, but also pretty funny and cute at times. They never really give you any reason its done this way, so i assume some people will be put off by it, but I was not really put off by the strange ness at all, it was the other half of this decision that I feel the most complex about, which is the way it routes back and forth through time so frequently.

The basic loop for an episode is you'll see one period, and then it will be cut together with something from when they were younger, and those 2 periods will rarely be directly compared, its mostly up to you to draw a link between them, thematically. It's almost like in an ensemble cast sitcom how somehow everyone will all be dealing with a similar moral/ethical issue on the same day each in a unique way so that at the end the results add up to a coherent worldview? Except in this show instead of having 6 main characters, they have 3 main characters and they fold their life history over itself so you see 2 halves that add up to a whole.

Ultimately, I can't complain because in the end i think it works, but it can be a lot to take in at times.

I had to get that out of the way, because it seems like what people notice first, which is somewhat regrettable because my actual review will stay pretty short:

If you are interested in that quirk, thats one reason to watch this, but I think the main reason to watch this movie is the realistic and nuanced way it deals with trauma, family, and friendship.

A lot of the show is very low-key, it plays things slow and even until theres a rough moment, or a really euphoric moment, and then it leans into soundtrack and editing a little more, and the acting will get a bit more theatric.

If you need like... fast pacing or extremely high stakes, this isn't gonna do it, but if you wanna watch some good actors play characters who act dumb and feel bad and then fix it, etc. Check it out, its worth a watch.

Cooper Raiff does a fantastic job at showing that grief doesn't always have a timeline or a simple beginning, middle and end. It can sneak up on you and present in a million different ways. The ensemble cast is so brilliant and takes on each of their stories unbelievably well. When I first read about the show, I figured it'd be an interesting watch but didn't think it would punch me in the face (in a good way) quite so hard.

I liked the story. The character development was well done, although not all of the characters were likable. Ironically, the creator and director, Cooper Raiff, played the most annoying character. He was immature, unaware, unintelligent and often nasty.

The choice for the adult actors to play their characters as children was bold, but it was misguided.

As with most vanity projects, the editing suffered horribly. The story could have been told better with two fewer episodes.

I don't regret the time spent with these characters, but it could have been much better.

Because all the characters in this TV series are the same and they all do the same things, there is always someone who cries throughout the series, there is always someone who vomits in the toilet, there is always someone lying down looking at the sky, then I wondered how much the budget of this TV series must have been because there are so many kisses who will have spent half the budget just to pay for all the kisses that there are perhaps it would have been better to spend them on hiring a real writer, the stories that are told to us are so empty that I feel like I spent a Sunday afternoon at the stadium without the match taking place.

The writing of this TV series is so naive that it doesn't seem written by Cooper Raiff but seems written by Hal, the editing which manages to change even ten shots with related situations was created only to try to make the TV series more interesting but unfortunately there is nothing interesting there are just things that happen every day, the worst thing I think are the many dramatic things that are in this series but which in no way manage to involve you, I think that the majority of the blame lies with the way in which we are told these stories, that is, in fragmented knots and also the fact that throughout the TV series you find yourself jumping from one story to another in the space of a few seconds! I want to forget everything, the only feeling that this TV series managed to convey to me was apathy!

I think the story is too disconnected to be impactful with the choice of storytelling they used. If this was a spin off to something and the characters had a template for people to follow maybe this would be better but it just doesn't work.

This is like some sundance garbage that's too convoluted to follow but everyone praises it as art because it makes them feel using film techniques. This would have made more sense as an anthology as it's main goal doesn't seem to be telling a story, the main goal is to invoke a feeling.

This would have made more sense as an anthology as it's main goal doesn't seem to be telling a story, the main goal is to invoke a feeling.

Really uninteresting "day in an average life" series. It's not exciting. Not extraordinary. Not special in any way. Theres no "unusual aspect" to anything. It's ordinary scenes about ordinary topics. There's no "there there".

I found little humor.. and very little to engage a viewer.

Is Hal supposed to be "on the spectrum"? If not.. seems like he may be. Really puzzling thing is ...why are two grown adults attending 3rd grade???

The story is "all over the place" and so fractured each of the independent storylines for these family members fails to garner much interest.

The entire series appears to be predicated on one line of dialog "you had to grown up too fast." It bounces back and forth between timeframes.. and none of it is comes together in a cohesive manner.

All the acting is good.. Not a real fan of the abundant "emo" music soundtrack.. but the story.. the story just isn't there.

Even after the finale I'm left wondering.. why did I waste my time??? There's no payoff, no ending one can't predict. Absolutely nothing unexpected.

There's just no reason to watch this series.

Excellent soundtrack and decent acting make it a watchable experience, but the pacing is incredibly slow like sitting through a five-hour indie film with no fast-forward button. The plot lines themselves aren't bad but one trope sticks out awkwardly and doesn't quite blend in with the rest.

It's the kind of show that's ideal if you're home sick and need something gentle to drift in and out of. Not a hate watch, just not gripping. Mark Ruffalo is always solid and the other main actors and bit parts are solid... but this might worked better as a tight, well-paced feature film than a stretched-out series.

Watched at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Cooper Raiff created two movies that are some really smart and funny movies about men, relationships, and identity and this new upcoming series is Raiff's biggest project to date. For the first four episodes premiered at Sundance, Raiff still has a pretty good grip of what he explores on. Comedy, men, relationships, and bonds together in the nature settings. Unfortunately, unlike his previous works, I really didn't care much for this one.

Throughout, Raiff does apply some of his usual approaches and style with the themes, characters, and ideas. I do appreciate some of the themes Raiff was exploring but I found myself not really liking the characters, as unlike being funny and interesting, I mostly found the characters to be kind of boring and at times, unbearable. Almost as if they were annoying and filled with narcissism that makes them uninteresting.

With some of the pacing being off, the uses of cliches on the writing and tone makes it more unrealistic. Including some certain choices on the designs and portray being a bit weird that doesn't fully work. The performances of the cast are solid as everyone gives good emotions and expresses. But Raiff seems to kind of stretch out the narrative with moments that felt a bit overlong and overbearing.

Even though this is only four episodes and not completed, I personally found myself feeling as if this could have been another movie and it would probably be better than a show. Don't get me wrong, I like Raiff and I wish him very well with his newfound career and works. I love to see him keep going but this one just wasn't for me.