I had a lazy weekend—well, lazier than usual—and ended up watching lots of TV and movies. Good thing they were mostly entertaining. Here are some brief thoughts on the ones worth mentioning.
Killing Eve
I’ve been salivating for this since I heard about it back in February. BBC America’s comedic thriller stars Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer and is written and exec produced by Fleabag‘s brilliant Phoebe Waller-Bridge, whom I’ll follow anywhere (she’s next up in Solo).
Oh plays Eve, a bored MI-5 agent on the trail of Comer’s international assassin, Villanelle, and the two actresses are great foils for each other. Eve is messy and quirky but razor sharp when it comes to work. Villanelle is a slick sociopath, but Comer’s performance and Waller-Bridge’s writing manage to add ink-dark humor to the brutal kill missions. Even the soundtrack is funny.
The adaptation is much better than the novellas—all gathered in Codename Villanelle—by Luke Jennings, who, while depicting two strong female protagonists, still wrote them from a male POV. Plus, Eve is white and 29 on the page; I love that Oh got the part. She, Comer, and Waller-Bridge bring the women vibrantly and gleefully to life.
A Quiet Place
This thriller about monsters who track their prey by sound is watching-through-your-fingers suspenseful, and its 6-person cast, including John Krasinski (also the diretor) and Emily Blunt, gives fantastic performances, almost entirely without dialogue.
My two quibbles are 1) we see too much of the creatures too soon and 2) we don’t know what their motivation is. Monsters need motivation, too. Take something like Aliens and it’s clear why the mother alien is hostile. A Quiet Place‘s creatures seem nasty for nasty’s sake.
But if you like fine acting and being kept on the edge of your seat for almost an hour and a half, this movie is worth a look.
Blockers
Three teenage girls make a sex pact to lose their virginity on prom night. Their parents find out and set out to stop the kids. Hijinks ensue.
I appreciate the questions Blockers poses—if boys are celebrated for losing their virginity, why can’t the same go for girls? Why is sex even bad?—but the movie still subjects viewers to really crude gags involving butts and balls. You’ve been warned.
Bottom line, I found more to cringe at than laugh at.
What did you watch this weekend?
Ex-New York Congressman Steve Israel couldn’t have been more timely with his sophomore novel, Big Guns. A major gun manufacturer is threatened by a call for a national ban on handguns, so the company brings in its top lobbyist to convince the government that every citizen should be legally required to own a firearm.
This heartwarming picture book is beautiful in every respect. The young girl narrating the story finds empowerment wearing her mother’s headscarves. The acceptance of those around her—her friends, teachers, and especially her grandmother who isn’t Muslim—encourages the child to be proud of her identity.
Set in a semi-apocalyptic future in the town of West End, Barnes paints a haunting portrait of a town stripped to its bones and the lives of its few remaining residents. Residents of the bordering town of South End may seem better off, but their existence is filled with traffic, plastic homes, and a hunger for material things.
By age nine, Tyler Wetherall had lived in thirteen houses in five countries on two continents, yet she still believed her father simply had “business problems.”
I love books where women reinvent their lives in some way and emerge strong or stronger.