Binge-r #190: The Great + Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Destiny’s Child: Elle Fanning (Catherine) and Nicholas Hoult (Peter) in The Great
THE GREAT
Streaming Service: Stan
Availability: All 10 episodes now streaming
The absurdity runs deep and cruel in this black comedy of royal prerogative. “You gave me a bear and ceased punching me,” Russia’s teenage empress, Catherine (Elle Fanning), tells her wilful new husband, Emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult). “What woman would not be happy?” Essentially bought from a bankrupt German monarchy in 1761 and sent to a strange and barbaric court, Catherine’s dreams of love and flourishing rule do not survive long in Peter’s company. He’s an absolute ruler whose extreme whims start with open infidelity and extend to murder. In terms of the plot they’re both wild punctuation and persistent risk. “You cannot win,” Peter tells Catherine when her unhappiness stretches to defiance, and the show never forgets that fearful imbalance he so casually wields.
The Great pledges itself “an occasionally true story”, but the many fictions initially hit the mark. Created by Australian screenwriter and director Tony McNamara, it’s an extension of the script he co-wrote for 2018’s The Favourite, the radical and scabrous reimagining of Queen Anne’s reign that won Olivia Colman an Academy Award. The milieu is both historically bizarre and recognisably contemporary in terms of dialogue and outlooks. In their respective ways Catherine and Peter are both entitled heirs who abuse their immense privilege, but the hook is that she doesn’t succumb to the nihilism of those who serve him and instead decides that she will usurp his rule and save the people of Russia.
The mechanics of this momentous coup start to drag out however. The blithe bad manners and reprehensible behaviour has an almost jaunty, through the looking glass tone that doesn’t sit easily with the slow accumulation of covert power and the forging of alliances. At times the horrors that flourish under Peter’s gaze can feel less like a seditious critique than an enjoyable inducement. The performance of Fanning, who ties Catherine together so that her naivety and ambition, high morals and regal annoyance, make sense as both a character and a reaction to Hoult’s Peter, who is not merely a bonehead but also a genuine threat, provides a compass of sorts. However the assemblage of directors lack boldness at times, and brevity is an issue, too. The wild gambits only elevate it so far.
>> Great Show/New Home: One of 2018’s best shows, the parallel worlds espionage thriller Counterpart, with J.K. Simmons in dual roles amidst a terrific mix of conspiracy and reflective guilt, now has both seasons available on Amazon Prime Video [season one review here].
Freedom Fighter: Ellie Kemper (Kimmy) in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT: KIMMY VS THE REVEREND (Netflix): Way more fun than Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Netflix’s latest take on interactive storytelling offers a typically quick-witted and funny coda to one of the streaming service’s signature comedies. Co-written by the show’s creators, Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, this extended movie finds Kimmy’s imminent marriage to eccentric royal Fredrick (a game Daniel Radcliffe) sidelined by her discovery that the cult leader (Jon Hamm) who imprisoned her in a bunker for 15 years may still have more young women locked away. Rescuing them returns Kimmy to her original mission, to remake her life in the face of trauma so monolithic silliness is the only lens that can accommodate it. The first choice is 90 seconds in (the interface is easy) between a “fun” and a “fancy” wedding dress, and with all the regular supporting cast in attendance the myriad of plot options are unified by the frequency of good gags. You can play for completist Easter eggs, but it’s as easy to watch for the writing and Kemper’s masterful performance. Kimmy’s loopy bravado is more of a tonic than ever before.
New on SBS on Demand: A study of how power trumps morality that is based on real life events, Craig Zobel’s Compliance (2012, 86 minutes) is an uneasy and stark drama about a fast food restaurant manager (Ann Dowd) who takes a call from what she believes is a police officer and begins to humiliate and punish a staff member (Dreama Walker) at the request of the authority figure.
New on Stan: Placing Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard amidst otherworldly atmospherics and concise confrontations, Justin Kurzel’s take on Macbeth (2015, 109 minutes) is an ominous mood piece; Matanga/Maya/M.I.A. (2018, 97 minutes) is a telling portrait of an artist whose striking mix of pop and politics undercut the industry that initially harboured her.
>> Missed last week’s BINGE-R? Click here for reviews of ABC iView’s entertainingly sly reboot of High Fidelity and Netflix’s moody Parisian jazz drama The Eddy.
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>> Check the complete BINGE-R archive: 236 series reviewed here, 141 movies reviewed here, and 33 lists compiled here.
