Binge-r #256: Impeachment: American Crime Story + Iggy & Ace
All the President’s Women: Beanie Feldstein (Monica Lewinsky) in Impeachment: American Crime Story
IMPEACHMENT: AMERICAN CRIME STORY
Streaming Service: Binge
Availability: All 10 episodes now streaming
In the first episode of this detailed Washington D.C. drama, there’s an encounter between two characters in an underground parking garage. With its echoes of All the President’s Men, the scene is a fitting nod to the modern screen lineage of U.S. Presidential conspiracies, but in this case it’s not just the eras that are different. Set in the mid-1990s, when Bill Clinton’s infidelities snowballed into scandal and then impeachment, this thoughtful series turns around the perspective. The focus here are the women central to the story, who nonetheless became a footnote in history. There’s Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein), the White House intern whose affair with Clinton helped break the nascent Internet, her friend turned betrayer, Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson), and Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford), the Arkansas receptionist whose quest to sue Clinton over his sexual advances while that state’s Governor made his actions a political weapon used against him.
Created by the American playwright Sarah Burgess, this limited series stays close to people who struggle with their fears of insignificance and disappointment. Lewinsky is convinced that she and the President of the United States (Clive Owen, in a pungent performance) are in love, sacrificing her own life to be available should he reach out to her. Tripp is combative and self-important, confronting others to demand they respect her privacy so as to put the career bureaucrat at the centre of attention. They are flawed, sometimes difficult characters, but the way the system – political, legal, and media – draws them in and then turns on them is hardly fair. They are victims who don’t just want sympathy, although there’s often a barbed, bleak sense of humour to their betrayal. “It takes a dramatic turn,” the strait-laced Jones tells her high-powered lawyers, describing the Presidential penis.
This is the third instalment of American Crime Story anthology, following 2016’s The People v. O.J. Simpson [full review here] and 2018’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace [full review here], both of which are currently streaming on Netflix. The series falls under the banner of prolific creator/producer Ryan Murphy, who directed the first episode, and Burgess’ writing intertwines recognisable traits of the previous editions. There are acidic portrayals of famous supporting players, including Cobie Smulders as the conservative pundit Ann Coulter and Billy Eichner as the breakthrough Internet columnist Matt Drudge, as well as an appreciation for how public celebrity warps every relationship and the ease with which demonization becomes central to public life in America. That is a wide-ranging brief with numerous historic strands, and while there are no shortage of piquant exchanges and infamous details, Impeachment approaches the narrative with a methodical eye. The key characters get the right to be seen and heard.
Bottle Rockets: Sara West (Iggy) and Josh Virgona (Ace) in Iggy & Ace
IGGY & ACE (SBS on Demand, all six episodes now streaming): SBS thankfully continue to commission their micro-series for new talents, with the six 10-minute episodes of this corrosive comedy following in the footsteps of April’s Tasmanian mystery The Tailings [full review here]. Iggy (Sara West) and Ace (Josh Virgona) are either drunk or hungover, a pair of queer 20somethings whose celebratory defiance has toppled over into addiction. Written by AB Morrison and directed by Tania Zanetti, the show has a feel for the outrageous and the vulnerable, with a degree of fractiousness in the storytelling that’s connected to their community. When Ace secretly decides to try sobriety, he goes to “gay AA”, and the sometimes exaggerated circumstances has a bittersweet underpinning – the duo’s avuncular drug dealer, Otto (Dalip Sondhi), may be terminally ill, but his extravagant death looms like a loss in their unconventional family. With deceptive ease the condensed episodes become a study of companionship and enablement, all tied together in an hour.
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
New on Netflix: Robert Eggers is a brilliant new voice in horror filmmaking, with The Lighthouse (2019, 109 minutes) a surreal study of madness and male hierarchy that strands Robert Pattinson and Willem Defoe beyond reason; Based on real life events, Worth (2021, 118 minutes) stars Michael Keaton in a jittery, open performance as the leading lawyer given the impossible task of sorting the financial compensation for the families of 9/11 victims.
New on Stan: A purposeful superhero origin story, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman (2017, 142 minutes) plays to Gal Gadot’s blunt strengths and serves as a reminder than when ranking the Chris’s that it’s Pine who is the most versatile; The Dissident (2020, 118 minutes) is a stark, horrifying dissection of state power, examining how Saudi Arabia planned and executed the murder of exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi at its Turkish embassy in 2018.
New on SBS on Demand: History happens at an uncertain distance in the compelling Farewell, My Queen (2012, 96 minutes), which unfolds at the Palace of Versailles in 1789 as rumours of the Bastille being stormed in Paris reach both Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger) and an astute servant (Lea Seydoux), who rises up amidst the panic as the regal lifestyle is dissected with an eye more rigorous than most period stories allow.
>> Missed the last BINGE-R? Click here to read about the witty Disney+ comedy Only Murders in the Building and Netflix’s twisty thriller Hit & Run.
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