Does We Crashed Work? 

Telling the story of the fabled start-up turned national communal workspace, WeWork, WeCrashed takes a look into the personal life of WeWork co-founders Adam and Rebekah Neumann and how their story impacted the ultimate catastrophic collapse of the company. 

With two Academy Award winners front and center, WeCrashed, goes for empathy when exploring its eccentric subject matter. But does it work? The Conservative Critic asks: Is it entertaining? Does it have intellectual/artistic value? And is it liberal propaganda? 

Conservative Critic Meter Check: We Crashed

Overall Rating: Very good

Most viewers will only have a casual awareness of the WeWork saga going into the show so WeCrashed is covering a lot of new ground. The story is compelling and downright captivating. With a dichotomy of characters – immigrant dreamer Adam Neumann versus heiress Rebekah Paltrow (yes that one) – to stimulate viewer imagination and curiosity, WeCrashed delivers a believable portrayal of some fairly unbelievable real life events and attitudes. 

Between the performances, the well thought storytelling and the impeccable make-up and styling, WeCrashed is on top in a full field of dramas based on true white collar stories. 

Is it entertaining? 

Rating: Mesmerizing 

Viewers will be absolutely captivated by the story of WeWork’s creation, struggles and demise (technically it’s still alive I guess) and the more personal tale of a marriage where love was born of big ideas. There is something about the WeWork idea and about Jared Leto’s (Suicide Squad) Adam Neumann (and I suspect, real life Adam Neumann) that you just want to root for. There is something particularly ironic about the ease in which viewers will fall into the passion about communal work spaces considering so many of us have transitioned into remote working scenarios where we hardly leave our homes. 

But despite the pitfalls and the character flaws of the show’s leads, despite knowing it’s all coming down, viewers will get swept up in the romance of higher living and spirituality. It is easy to watch and frustratingly a weekly serial and therefore – not available to binge. 

Does it have intellectual/artistic value? 

Rating: Masterpiece

The performances are everything in WeCrashed and along with the well plotted storytelling which switches focus between subjects with grace interweaving personal trials with professionals allowing us to have compassion for people who made some pretty questionable decisions with billions of dollars and hundreds of employees. 

Both alumni of the DC Universe and both Academy Award winners, Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway are sensational. With help from the makeup team, Leto is unrecognizable as Adam Neumann and his commitment to the character is borderline bone chilling but also essential to the workability of the material. The sincerity with which Leto delivers an Adam who dreams and believes everything will be okay allows viewers to be on his side. It’s not a cartoon. It’s earnest and its the best I’ve ever seen Leto (whose work I don’t typically care for re: the worst of all the Jokers and overrated in House of Gucci). 

Hathaway plays a self-victimized rich girl but actually gives us something to hold on to. WIth characters like this, it’s easy to just brush over their nuances and make them an unforgivable brat but the truth is harder. Hathaway gives us some truth and viewers are able to actually feel her awkwardness and her sense of ‘not fitting in’ which would not normally be prescribed to the rich and famous. 

Overall, the world immersion is perfectly done and WeCrashed really works.

Is it liberal propaganda? 

Rating: Kinda conservative actually 

I’m not sure it’s the intention but I find the sincerity in Leto’s performance to be so powerful it makes the film right leaning. An immigrant with nothing but ideas, Adam Neumann believes he will be a billionaire. And is that not the American dream in a nutshell? Even short lived, even with all Neumann’s many many flaws and mistakes made and people he hurt, he had a goal and he achieved that goal. And where else on earth could he have done that? People lost their jobs, yes, but those jobs wouldn’t have existed in the first place without Adam’s vision. And maybe that’s a cheap point to make – but the way Leto sells it really makes you believe it. And to me that’s a conservative point of view. Dream it into life. America.