• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, November 25, 2024

As ads, these “real Amazon five-star customer reviews” performed by “real serious actor” Adam Driver are simple, natural, and the perfect combination of form and function.

The concept is a brainy no-brainer that livens up “user-generated” with the kind of positively trumpet-blowing product promotion that otherwise would never fly, presented in the most deadpan humorously way. 

In a set-up right out of Alistair Cooke introducing “Masterpiece Theater,” we see a lit-up Christmas tree, a roaring fire, and a pianist in the background.

Driver, the understated, some-might-say-hangdog actor, with his dark mop of hair, eschews the host’s usual silk smoking jacket, but is seated in a plush leather armchair.

Against this classy backdrop, Driver delivers this opening line: “What can I say about this banana slicer that has not been said about the wheel and penicillin?”

It’s as if we’ve slipped on a banana peel, given how jokey, overwrought and unexpected the product -- and the rave it’s given -- is. 

The review takes a minute and a quarter to narrate, as the writer colorfully describes how the pesky chore of cutting bananas had brought great “tension“ to her household and marriage.

After “rearing her children all day” she’d ask her hubby to pitch in on the slicing duty. And he’d get angry. “You know, it was the old ‘I worked a 12-hour shift just to come home to this?’” she claims he responded.

Then “Mrs. T” adds that when she overheard her six-year-old daughter reenacting her parents’ daily banana fight with her dolls, she knew she needed a remedy.

That salvation came in the form of a banana-shaped plastic slicer goes into the category of “Who knew?” 

In a masterly delivery by Driver, Mrs. T works up a verbal lather until she arrives at her last paragraph. “Our marriage has never been healthier,” she discloses.

Driver takes a beat. “And, we’ve incorporated it into our lovemaking.”

So the fact that they get frisky with the prosaic -- but little known -- household implement is a greatly unanticipated kicker.

Overall, the review is amazingly well-written, if not a comic masterpiece.

But I question the internal logic. Was her husband coming home from a 12-hour shift in the early morning to help on banana duty? Because slicing the bananas in the evening, after she “reared her children” all day, makes little sense.

If she’s prepping for breakfast the next day, the slices would be brown by then. 

Also, to be honest, slicing bananas is hardly odious. It’s a rather easy and pleasant experience, especially by comparison with chopping, say, raw eggplant or cabbage. And if the Mrs. really wants to share household duties, laundry and pot-cleaning are more legitimate divorce-makers. 

As for the topper, incorporating the slicer into the bedroom sounds like the kind of fevered detail an exhausted writer might make up for added oomph for her sock-o ending.

Since the spots were done in-house, I imagine they were checked for authenticity.

But in an incidental way, this howler of a review points to a growing problem: It’s estimated that about 20% of all Amazon reviews are fake, which is a challenge, considering the increasingly porous line between reality and its alternative in our culture.

Overall, there are 10 different 30- and 60-second Driver monologues, but the saga of the banana-slicer is the showstopper of the bunch.  The spots are running across paid social, premium online video and Amazon's owned channels for the run-up to, and through, Black Friday.

Driver, the former moody boyfriend on “Girls,” was the perfect pick for this project. The production is great. Plus, his delivery is first-rate, ascending to somewhere near the invention of penicillin and the wheel.

But then again, I might be exaggerating.