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BY BENJAMIN CARR
H
EADSTRONG, POWERFUL FEMALE characters can drive the best narratives, no matter the genre. Some of the newest shows and films to hit the small screen put such protagonists in the driver’s seat, and the results are very mixed. While many projects with the highest pedigree and talent have been spectacularly disappointing, other projects with lower ambitions have succeeded.
RATCHED (Netflix)
This series is a disaster. It is a beautifully staged, thoroughly confounding, tonally scattered piece of garbage. Avoid it. Avoid it as though it was someone unmasked coughing nonstop in a grocery store. Consider yourself warned. This latest Ryan Murphy production, part of his deal with Netflix that also gave us The Politician and Hollywood, is a prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, supposedly aiming to tell the unknown history of Nurse Mildred Ratched. The cold, conservative, drab and by-thebook nurse originated by Oscar winner Louise Fletcher, however is now a stylized, sexually repressed, lying con artist and murderer played by Sarah Paulson. It makes zero sense, even from the beginning. In the 1940s, Nurse Ratched shows up to interview for a job at a California asylum that is housing a serial killer, played by Finn Wittrock, who just hacked up a house full of priests. Ratched has secret motives that tie her to the killer, so she is intent on helping him survive. This feels more like an extension of American Horror Story Asylum than anything to do with Ken Kesey’s novel. Ratched here is nothing like the nurse we know and the plot here meanders so wildly into horror, kink and gore that it’s almost silly. The show is unnecessary and unfocused. And even great actresses like Paulson, Cynthia Nixon, Judy Davis and a monkey-toting Sharon Stone get lost in the mess of it.
ENOLA HOLMES (Netflix)
This movie about Sherlock Holmes’ spunky kid sister, herself a wise and capable sleuth, is a charming winner that the whole family may appreciate. Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown shines in an altogether different sort of role here, playing Enola as a capable, modern girl who won’t be held back or overshadowed by her brothers Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mycroft (Sam Claflin) in Victorian London. When her free-spirited mother (Helena Bonham Carter) disappears under mysterious circumstances, Enola tracks the clues ahead of her famous brother to try and determine what happened. Along the way, she discovers several secret plots that affect not only her family but the whole world. Directed by Fleabag helmer Harry Bradbeer, with much of the same narrative tricks as that series, Enola Holmes is a blast from start to finish, a big-budget movie about the indomitable spirit of a girl seeking to find her own way.
FILTHY RICH (Fox)
A trashy nighttime soap usually shows up every couple of years, aiming to hook viewers for a fun, crazy ride. The last one to really impact the culture was Empire, which ended its run last season. Now, Fox and creator Tate Taylor have given us the tale of a philandering televangelist who disappears after a plane crash, leaving his pious, calculating celebrity widow Margaret to deal with his three secret children from three separate affairs. Playing Margaret, star Kim Cattrall is gloriously over-the-top and campy. Her first scene involves her sauntering away from a burning Louisiana mansion in her best formalwear and fur. Of the three grown children, Margaret’s biggest antagonist is her porn titan stepdaughter Ginger, played by Melia Kreiling as a worthy adversary to Cattrall. Filthy Rich is a great deal of fun so far. It’s equal parts witty and tacky.
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insiteatlanta.com • October 2020 • PG 5
