Sharp Objects is a screen version of a novel by Gillian Flynn. On behalf of the editor of the newspaper, the journalist Camilla Pryker goes to the town of Wind Gap, where there was a brutal murder. In a small, quiet town, a girl was brutally murdered, and the editor gave the assignment to do a series of reports on the investigation of the crime. Camilla was born and raised in Wind Gap and is not burning with the desire to return to the city of childhood, where her mother Adora still lives with her new husband and half-sister Emma, who Camilla has never seen in her life. Too many horrible memories, disappointments, pains, and tragedies left Camilla in "county town" W. But work is work," the chief said, "I need to," and Camilla replied, "I do. Returning to the small homeland turned out to be even worse than Camilla had imagined - all the ghosts of the past had come to life again, and the pain deep inside the soul had escaped.
The announcement of the series sounded like music:
"A new series from the IEE, the novel Sharp objects (with all its disadvantages) is very fertile ground for gloomy, trash, psychological thriller, director Jean-Marc Valle (Big little lie, Dallas Club customers, Wild); The main roles are played by Amy Adams (Arrival, Doubt, Smallville Secrets), Oscar-winning Patricia Clarkson (Dogville, April Holiday, Card House), handsome Chris Messina (Client always dead, News Service), charming Miguel Sandoval (Cocaine, X-Files)"
....It's not even an announcement, it's a direct way to the top of success...and "Emmy-Emmy-Emmy".
The Sharp Objects series was full of "surprises". The first, the most "grand" - the actors. Why is the screen Camille Parker (Amy Adams) turned out to be so pale, spineless and pathetic? Returning to her hometown, she plunges back into the role of the victim with such eagerness, is easily conducted on all the tricks of her mother, over and over again musings, long experienced, painful memories. Being an adult, independent woman, can fight back neither mother nor stepfather, nor sister? Constantly bleaches something inaudible. It is hard to believe that in her youth she had the spirit and character to raise a revolt against the despotic Adora, to break all the ties of kinship and start life from scratch. If she could then, why can't she now? One thing does not fit with the other (everything was logical in the original source).
Adore (Patricia Clarkson) on the screen turned out to be cold, distant and sick on the whole head, but to Adora-moral-sadist, able to break the will of an adult daughter and drag her back into her "web" of humiliation, abuse, and mockery, clearly could not reach.
Detective Richard Wills (Criss Messina) on the screen is just a pretty uncle, who periodically appears in the frame, allegedly investigates something, and sometimes fucks Camilla (where are no sexual pleasures?).
But Eliza Scanlen's debut became a pleasant surprise. Little Emma, in her performance, a real "devil" in a skirt, such a touching "wolf in sheep's clothing. Well done, girl! And the caring editor-in-chief of the newspaper Frank Carrie (Miguel Sandoval) did not cause a negative.
It is said that a professional director on the set is able to "pull the ticks" from the actor such hidden talents that the actor himself did not expect from himself if it requires a role. And what is the conclusion? Valle is not a professional, he once allowed such a mess on his own set? I doubt it! Oscar for the Dallas Buyers Club in the piggy bank has. I'm confused, I don't know what to say about it, but "the scoreboard" and the score is not in favor of Valley.
And in general, the series abounds in strange strange characters that arise out of nowhere and disappear into nowhere. There are so many that at some point you stop paying attention to them - come, go, who was it? Why did you come?
The second surprise is the script itself. I still don't understand Sharp Objects is a detective with elements of drama or a mega-drama with elements of a detective? And the main question of the day - why did it stretch for eight episodes? Who said that there should be 8 episodes in the season? Why not 6 or 4? What is the indestructible serial standard?
Vallé had to take the initiative and start acting like a real director: ruthlessly cross out half of the "heart-rending-snotty" monologues, to give the plot a reasonable acceleration, to revive and "paint" the action, to drive pissed cloth pissed off the insolent serial star actors, to bring to the boiling point of the conflict "Adora-Kamilla-Emma", "friend" three genres of "detective-drama-triller"....and it would have turned out to be another movie. Alas, history does not like subjunctive inclination.
As a result, all promises turned into a "pumpkin", and Sharp Objects turned out to be tight, monotonous and fresh. I expected much more from the IEE and Valle.
Country: USA.
Year: 2018.