Sharp Objects
Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée · Based on the novel by Gillian Flynn · Max, 2018
| DirectorJean-Marc Vallée | PlatformMax | Year2018 |
| Episodes8 | FormatLimited Series | GenrePsychological Thriller |
| ThemesFamily trauma · Addiction · Southern Gothic · Women and harm · Secrets that outlive the people who kept them | ||
Journalist Camille Preaker returns to her small Missouri hometown to cover the murders of two young girls. What she’s really returning to is her mother, her damage, and a past that hasn’t let go of her yet.
“She’s been surviving herself for so long she’s forgotten what it feels like not to be.”
I watched this immediately after finishing the book and it was exactly the right call. Gillian Flynn’s Wind Gap is already suffocating on the page and Jean-Marc Vallée doesn’t dilute that, he deepens it. The slow editing, the way the camera holds on a face that clearly knows something, the particular rot underneath everything bright and Southern. The visuals aren’t just keeping up with the book, they’re adding to it. Certain things that lived in your head as impressions on the page become something more specific and more uncomfortable when you can actually see them.
Amy Adams is doing something in this show that I find hard to fully describe. Camille is a character who has been surviving herself for so long she’s forgotten what it feels like not to be doing that. Adams communicates it mostly through absence, the way Camille holds her body like she’s waiting for something bad to happen. It’s uncomfortable to watch and I mean that as high praise.
Still wow and still what the fuck is my actual review. I sat at the end of the finale for a few minutes before I did anything else.
Who This Is For
This is a slow show and that’s not a bad thing, it’s kinda the point. If you’re coming for momentum and fast paced, you will not find it here. This is a show you marinate in. Read the book first if you haven’t, not because the show requires it, but because watching them talk to each other is its own experience.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Still wow. Still wtf. Would absolutely wreck myself with this again.
Tags limited series, psychological thriller, HBO, Southern Gothic, Gillian Flynn, Amy Adams, mood: devastating
