The Just Enough Family
5.0/5
Critic Rating
Staggering success, unexpected loss, over-the-top parties, shocking betrayals, and profound intimacy are woven together into a high-profile family-therapy session. The Just Enough Family follows the meteoric rise and staggering fall of the Steinbergs, once one of America’s richest families, through the eyes of Liz Lange— successful fashion designer, captivating storyteller, and niece of the infamous corporate raider Saul Steinberg. Host Ariel Levy (The New Yorker, The Rules do Not Apply), Liz’s friend, gets an inside look at what happened to the once seemingly invincible clan. New money, old secrets, and the fine line between success and excess. The Just E...
Critic Reviews
Score: 5
Camille Moore • TV Over Mind • Oct 8, 2021
"The show is interesting, entertaining, and suspenseful. It’s an interesting look at the dynamics of relationships between loved ones and the ways in which money can come between them. The Just Enough Family has all of the makings of a great TV show, and it would be awesome to see the Steinberg family’s story come to life in a new way."
Score: 5
Nicholas Quah • Vulture • Oct 6, 2021
"I didn’t expect to like The Just Enough Family as much as I did. For what it’s worth, I went into the podcast cold, knowing close to nothing about all that, yet I was transfixed all the same. They are captivating in their minimalism, for lack of better word. The focus is almost completely on the interview tape, which is often with as little hand-holding narration as possible. And when there is guidance from Levy, it is as a warm, active presence within the interviews themselves. Part of what’s really interesting about The Just Enough Family is how it dances along the line separating the alluring from the alienating, working to bring you to a sense of empathy for these people as individuals."
Score: 5
Kenzie Bryant • Vanity Fair • Sep 9, 2021
"...discussion of wealth from the first-person perspective that feels like eavesdropping. We usually have to watch HBO for that kind of thing. Lange is a wonderful narrator of the experience because she keeps a childlike pitch about it, preserving somehow an incredulousness that it all had happened...the kind of refusal to dip into overarching narratives that makes the podcast worth listening to, whether the family is talking about their runaway wealth or about how they treated one another or even the secret family that Robert kept."
Score: 5
Adam Rathe • Town & Country • Sep 9, 2021
"The Just Enough Family is a rare look inside the life of the truly elite, but it’s also a story about a family that—give or take a few mansions—could be any of us; it pulls off the trick of being a wild ride that’s entirely relatable and underscores the importance of the things that money (OK, a lot of money) can never buy. …"
