[This fall I
watched Netflix’s Unbelievable, one of the most
compelling and important TV shows I’ve seen in a good while. The show opens up
a number of AmericanStudies conversations, so this week I’ll highlight and
analyze a handful of them, trying my best to avoid SPOILERS (but probably not
entirely succeeding). Leading up to a crowd-sourced post on the TV recommendations
of fellow AmericanStudiers—share yours in comments, please!]
On a few of the
many impressive layers of characterization present in Unbelievable’s trio of female protagonists (building on what I
wrote about them in Tuesday’s post):
1)
Marie Adler: I’ve focused a good bit on the
police over this series so far, and (while I haven’t done the math) I think
it’s fair to say that the two cop protagonists end up with the majority of the
show’s screen time. But it’s even fairer to say that from the first shots to
the last, and in many crucial ways in between, Unbelievable is Marie’s story. That’s unquestionably and centrally
due to Kaitlyn Dever’s
performance, one of the most natural and intimate and powerful acting jobs I’ve
seen in years. But it’s also due to the ways in which Dever and the writers
make Marie feel deeply three-dimensional and lived-in, like a young woman whose
identity and perspective are in no way defined (while of course they are
forever affected) by the sexual assault and its aftermaths. Through even the
briefest of scenes and conversations with friends and foster families, at work,
in every corner of her fragile young life, Marie becomes more and more the
beating heart of the show, carried forward inexorably by the plot but at the
same time (long before the final episodes) becoming at least as much the
thematic center as even the most shocking plot developments.
2)
Karen Duvall: If Marie is the show’s heart, Merrit Wever’s
Detective Duvall is its soul. Not just because of the compassion and empathy she
brings to every line and moment, although that is indeed the case from her
first encounters with Danielle Macdonald’s Amber in ways that significantly and
crucially shifts the show’s tone (as I wrote on Tuesday). But also because of
an interesting layer to Duvall beyond her professional role and her home life
(where her husband, a fellow police officer, is an important supporting
character): her religious beliefs and community. Unlike, say, with a character
like True Detective’s Rust Cohle
(whose strident critiques
of religion became viral sensations), Duvall’s perspectives on spirituality
only emerge in small moments and lines, and with the same quiet humility she
brings to every aspect of her job. But besides feeling far more realistic and
human as a result, those small moments are as a result more influential still,
both as a window into what makes this impressive woman tic and as one more
layer to the show’s grappling with themes of certainty and doubt, hope and
despair, justice and tragedy.
3)
Grace Rasmussen: From her muscle car (apparently
based on the actual detective’s vehicle, per the interview in the first
hyperlinked video above) to her far different first encounter with a civilian (angrily
accosting a potential rapist and then chewing him out when he turns out to be
simply indifferent to her investigation), Toni Collette’s
Detective Rasmussen is best described as the show’s guts. Of course it’s
practically a requirement for police dramas that two detectives contrast in one
way or another, and Duvall and Rasmussen certainly carry forward that legacy in
successful and entertaining ways. But because Collette (like these other two
actors) is such a talented performer, she makes Rasmussen into much, much more
than simply the clichéd tough cop or the like. Although she professes to hate
the word “mentor” (perhaps in part because of the presence of “men” in there),
she does become a powerful influence upon the younger Duvall, and makes a
choice in the penultimate episode (which I won’t spoil here) that seen through
that lens is profoundly moving and one more reflection of Unbelievable’s commitment to modeling so many sides to these three
women, individually and collectively.
Last
UnbelievableStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts on
this post and show? Other TV shows you’d recommend and analyze?
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