How Jill Kargman Became the Bard of the Upper East Side
How Jill Kargman Became the Bard of the Upper East Side
Danielle Stein ChizzikWed, May 6, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC
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Jill Kargman on InfluencedCourtesy Brainstorm Media / Menemsha Films
There was a certain type of person—intelligent, savvy, with a searing sense of humor, obviously—who was devastated when, in 2017, as part of its move away from scripted series, Bravo canceled Odd Mom Out. The show, which ran for three seasons, was a hilarious caricature of the rarefied corner of Manhattan that its creator, Jill Kargman, inhabits, with Kargman playing a lightly fictionalized version of herself as the show’s straight man.
Blessedly, she is back with a new film that is set in the same world, but this time Kargman plays Dzanielle, a ridiculously over-the-top Manhattan mom and influencer with a heart of gold. The character highlights the way measures of success have morphed in the social media age, even in the most traditional of enclaves. Influenced, in theaters on May 8, has a sweet, Bill Lawrence–esque emotional core—Kargman pokes fun at her world, but it clearly comes from love—but the film moves to the fast, razor-witted Aaron-Sorkin-of-Park-Avenue beat that made Odd Mom Out so delicious. “I used to carry an actual notebook,” Kargman says of how she amasses her endless stream of social observations. “But then I saw that Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who’s an idol of mine, takes all her notes on her phone in a file called Funny Shit. So I her, and everything in Influenced came from my Funny Shit file.”
Jill Kargman and Drew Barrymore in Influenced, in theaters May 8.Courtesy Brainstorm Media / Menemsha Films
Included in that list: an Upper East Side homeless man who is perpetually clad in bar mitzvah swag that has been cast off by the locals; charity shopping events that donate measly pennies to organizations like MAVE: Mothers Against Vaping and Edibles, formed to save children from increasing stupidity; and avant-garde luxury dog walkers who interview you and your dog before agreeing to take you on. “I had heard about this guy who would charge thousands of dollars per pooch per week, was better dressed than you, and would present you with a weekly binder on your dog’s fecal output,” Kargman says. “I thought that was so funny, and I’d been sitting on it for years. Using that bit led to the whole upstairs/downstairs plot of the movie. It’s about the machine: the people living life in the Upper East Side fast lane, and then the people who support that.”
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Also delightful is the cast, which is composed of actors you wish you saw more of (David Krumholtz, Justin Bartha), a very game Gwyneth Paltrow in a recurring bit, and pitch-perfect cameos (including one from T&C’s own Stellene Volandes). “The cameos with these consummate New Yorkers lend veracity to the world, and that’s partly why everyone assumes the characters are based on real people,” Kargman says. This happened with her television show, too. “Everyone was always saying, ‘This one must be based on so-and-so,’ ” but she insists her characters truly are fictional. “It just seems familiar to people,” she adds, “because sometimes there is reality in the stereotype.”
This story appears in the May 2026 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
