Baby Reindeer (TV series)
Baby Reindeer was a wonderful and intense surprise. The premise is simple enough: a bartender makes a kind gesture to a lonely woman, opening the door to years of stalking that escalates into physical attacks. But there is so much more to the 7 episode limited series than just that.
For one thing, the creator of the show and its star, Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, actually lived through this. The series is based on his one-man show of the same name which recounted his years being stalked by "Martha" (not her real name) and all the confounding choices Gadd himself made during this time. I say "confounding" because at various points in the storyline, Gadd--playing a version of himself named Donny Dunn--fails to see red flags, set boundaries, explain what is going on to others, and take decisive action prompting the viewer to yell "WHAT!?" at the screen multiple times.
But, ah, there is good reason for Donny's passivity. And I implore anyone interested in seeing the show with a blank slate to stop reading here and just go watch it (it's only about 4 hours in total). Please do look up appropriate trigger warnings because, hoo boy, is there a lot of upsetting material in Baby Reindeer, but this show is 100% worth the watch.
SPOILERS BELOW!
It is revealed partway through the series that years before Donny encountered Martha, he was a struggling comedian who had a run-in with Darrien, a powerful writer with successful TV series under his belt. Under the guise of "mentorship" and "working together", Darrien encourages Donny to do harder and harder drugs with him. While Donny is out of it, Darrien molests him. Donny always feels ashamed after these encounters but keeps going back every time Darrien calls him. It builds up to a horrific encounter where Darrien rapes Donny after having him take a mixture of GHB and LSD.
Although Donny is able to break away from Darrien, he cannot escape the emotional toll of his experience. He becomes sexually confused, not sure if he prefers men, women, or both. He has meaningless encounters with people of every gender just to feel wanted. He feels intense shame and his self-esteem is in the trash. In other words, he is the ideal person to fall victim to a woman who shows up in his life and becomes obsessed with him. Both because it feels good to Donny to feel wanted, but also because it makes it that much harder to report Martha to the police: Donny reasons that what Martha is doing is not as bad as what Darrien did, and he didn't report Darrien, so what "right" does he have to report Martha?
Baby Reindeer is an astoundingly vulnerable and honest look into the mind and decisions of people who have suffered from abuse. Richard Gadd strikes a beautiful balance at revealing his own missteps while never blaming the victim (in this case, himself). He is also careful to show how Martha is a victim herself: she is mentally unwell, lonely, desperate. But he never excuses her increasingly awful behavior. In an increasingly polarized world, it's tempting to paint situations in black and white, and I believe that Gadd masterfully captures the shades of gray that color his own story.
Baby Reindeer is an emotionally intense and important story that encourages us to both have empathy for others while also setting boundaries for ourselves. Highly recommended.
Grade: A+
***
Strange Way of Life
This short film (30 minutes) by acclaimed director Pedro Almodovar is so good that the only criticism I can lob at it is that it's too short. Strange Way of Life stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as two men who reunite 25 years after sharing a brief fling in the wild days of their youth. But the reunion isn't entirely happy. Silva (Pascal) is back in town to protect his son, accused of murdering a woman who happens to be Jake's (Hawke) sister-in-law. Also, Jake is the sheriff.
As with all of Almodovar's films, Strange Way of Life is melodramatic, beautiful, and unabashedly queer. It's just too dang short--I would love for this to be a feature-length film!
Strange Way of Life is currently streaming on Netflix if you want to give it a watch.
Grade: B+
***
Ripley (TV series)
Based on the novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, some folks were skeptical of this 8 episode miniseries, which was commissioned by Showtime and then sold to Netflix--which means that it's a higher-quality series than you usually see on Netflix. The skepticism centered mostly on the casting of Andrew Scott (best known as "Hot Priest" from Fleabag) as Tom Ripley. Some felt that Scott was too old to play Tom Ripley, but to my mind there's no "rule" that Tom has to be in his 20s for the plot to work. Johnny Flynn (age 41) plays Dickie Greenleaf, so the two leads are not too mismatched in age anyway.
Filmed in gorgeous black and white, Ripley follows Tom, a scam artist living in New York who is contacted by Herbert Greenleaf (Kenneth Lonergan), a wealthy man who believes that Tom is friends with his son, Dickie. Dickie has been living in Italy for years, doing very little with his life (at least as Herbert sees it) and Herbert wants to pay Tom to go to Italy and convince Dickie to come home to New York. Of course, Tom jumps at the opportunity for a free vacation on Papa Greenleaf's dime. He heads to Italy, knowing nothing of the language and customs, finds Dickie and slowly integrates himself into the lives of Dickie and Dickie's girlfriend, Marge (Elle Fanning).
If you are familiar with The Talented Mr. Ripley, you know what happens next. For those unfamiliar, I'll just say that Tom very quickly wears out his welcome and doesn't take too kindly to the idea that it's time for him to go back to New York.
I found myself absolutely riveted by the series, especially the second half. I LOVE Anthony Minghella's film The Talented Mr. Ripley, which stars Matt Damon as the titular character. And while I still think the film is superior, I was incredibly impressed with this series and some of the interesting choices it made. Scott plays Tom Ripley as more of a sociopath than Damon did, which leads to some deeply unsettling scenes. Eliot Sumer, the child of Sting and Trudie Styler, plays Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman played Freddie in the film version), a friend of Dickie's who becomes very suspicious of Tom. I loved Sumner in this role--they captured Freddie's suspiciousness and smugness so well.
If you love mystery and noir, you'll probably enjoy Ripley. The cinematography alone makes the series worth checking out.
Grade: A-
***
We Were the Lucky Ones (TV series)
Based on the novel by Georgia Hunter, We Were the Lucky Ones follows a Polish Jewish family as they become separated during WWII and the events of the Holocaust. The Kurc family is made up of Sol and Nechuma, the parents; Halina, Mila, Jakob, Genek, and Addy (the siblings); and Adam, Selim, Bella, and Herta (the spouses of the siblings). The series opens in 1938 with the news of Nazism and antisemitism on the rise in Eastern Europe, but no real fear from the well-to-do Kurc family who could never believe that their very happy lives could ever be disrupted.
Over the course of the series, we follow the various Kurc family members to various towns on Poland as well as Siberia, Casablanca, and Brazil as they try to outrun or fight against the Nazis (and the Soviets). We Were the Lucky Ones provides a glimpse into how the modern Jewish diaspora occurred. It also shows the many ways in which Jewish people fought back against Nazism, including passing as gentile, engaging in underground resistance, and even complying as best they could. The horrible truth is that it didn't matter whether they complied with increasingly horrific demands and it didn't matter if they "looked" gentile or learned gentile prayers--fascism only cares about crushing everything in its way.
While the events of We Were the Lucky Ones aren't news to anyone with a modicum of knowledge about history, the show feels important as we watch our own version(s) of fascism play out in the United States and abroad today. It feels borderline taboo to reflect on antisemitism given the devastating war in Palestine and the brutal and violent actions of the Israeli government. But antisemitism is still alive and well and all ethnic, racial, and religious hatred and dehumanization is ultimately cut from the same cloth. The victims may be different, but the perpetrators all have that same thirst for power, cruelty, and control.
Grade: A-
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