Sunday Blog #6: Bridgerton season 3 part 1, Hoard
'Colin, it is impossible to be in society and not care what others think.'
A few weeks ago, I waxed lyrical about Rachel Lambert’s one-woman character drama Sometimes I Think About Dying and lamented the lack of introverted, anxious and romantically clumsy characters in film and TV. I was therefore ecstatic when watching the first four episodes of Bridgerton season 3 (one of Netflix’s most anticipated releases), which focuses most of its attention on not one, but two quieter women of the ton.
First is Penelope Featherington (a career-making role for Derry Girls favourite Nicola Coughlan), who wields a scandalous secret: she is the illustrious, controversial gossip columnist Lady Whistledown, intent on stripping down all the pomp and circumstance to reveal the monsters underneath. She maintains her side hustle despite being found out and subsequently alienated by her former best friend, the outspoken feminist Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie) who agrees to keep silent. But Penelope, contrary to her alter-ego, is a bag of nerves when it comes to social occasions and courting the local gentlemen. Though she doesn’t fit the ton’s usual beauty standards, it’s a debilitating lack of self-confidence that really inhibits her – exacerbated by high society treating her like a pariah (even her own mother). Penelope patches things up with her crush Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), after he drunkenly insulted her last season, and he agrees to help bag her a husband. After his travels around Europe, Colin’s become something of a womaniser: attracting flirtatious looks from every unwed woman and frequenting in threesomes with sex workers. But as he teaches Penelope the ways of 19th-century courtship, he begins developing feelings for his lovesick pupil.
I can’t be the only single and anxious introvert out there who’s desperate to have someone like Colin in their life? I related to Penelope at every turn: through her awkward gestures, collapses of embarassment and perceived unattractiveness (‘For some of us, notice is very slight’). Often she walks as if lost. But I connected more with her response to Colin when he says she shouldn’t concern herself with what people think:
Colin, it is impossible to be in society and not care what others think. Society is entirely composed of the judgement of others.
Yeah, I felt that. In the past, I’ve been advised the same – though often by people who’ve benefitted immeasurably from conforming to societal standards. I’m not utterly convinced of where the story goes – that Penelope just has to be herself and she’ll find a match – but it’s a life-affirming narrative. And maybe it’s correct: being comfortable in oneself could lead to a life partner sparkling into existence. Or maybe that’s just part of Bridgerton’s romantic fantasy…
The second isolater of the season is Francesca Bridgerton (Hannah Dodd), the latest of the family to come of age, who’s enduring the latest process of Queen Charlotte’s laboured search for a ‘diamond’. Francesca is uncomfortable with the new attention she’s receiving, and often whisks herself away to be alone outside (anyone else relate?). At one point, she finds herself in the company of another gentleman. But instead of chatting, flirting, going through the same social etiquette, they agree to stand in silence. Witnesses think it strange – maybe a lot of viewers will think the same – but I understood every moment. There’s beauty and intimacy in consensual silence. Because film and TV are largely extroverted mediums, the series can’t bear to dwell for long in these moments but I admire the effort.
Another thing: I’m enjoying the inclusion of more disabled characters within the ton. It’s been a long time coming. Although we’ve had disability represented via the mental illness of King George (James Fleet) and the cane-bearing Lady Agatha (Adjoa Andoh), I’ve never felt it was enough. I was pleased to see a deaf debutante address Queen Charlotte as well as a fancy wheelchair user (Zak Ford-Williams) being a potential marriage prospect for Penelope. They’re still lacking decent screen time, but it’s a good start. Considering the alt-history diversity of the series, I hope that representation continues to improve.
Taking social isolation to a completely different level, Hoard has just hit the cinemas. Last week, I mistakenly labelled this debut from Luna Carmoon a horror movie. In my defence, the trailer suggested as much, but it’s clear why the PR team did that: Hoard is hard to classify. I’ll try my best.
Ostensibly, it’s a social drama about the relationship between a mentally ill, near-destitute mother (an underrated Hayley Squires) and her eight-year-old daughter Maria (Lily Beau-Leach). The former hoards piles of items in their home, leaving little to no room, and nothing ever goes to waste. Rats and ferrets scurry around binliners and piano keys. For an indie film, Bobbie Cousins’ maximalist production design is astounding and explodes in every corner – the frame filled with various iterations of detritus, growing into a peculiar comfort for Maria as she grows into adulthood.
Eight years later, in 1994, Maria’s played by a creepily gripping Saura Lightfoot-Leon who has a surprising command of the camera. The character is now in foster care via the much more sensible Michelle (Sex Education’s Samantha Spiro), and enjoys a friendship with the extroverted Laraib (Deba Hekmat). But the entrance of the 29-year-old binman Michael (Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn) throws her mind into a deeper chaos, by which she’s simultaneously thrilled, relaxed and turned on. Both had bad childhoods, their traumas reflected in their sporadic bursts of weirdness involving bins, food, and a little drum taken from a homeless man.
‘Social drama’ doesn’t quite fit as Hoard spirals, faster and faster, into a surreal fairytale world set in southeast London. Like the opening shot, closely following a trolley as it spins around and around and around, the film grows dizzying and hypnotic as much as disturbing. Since Maria isn’t forthcoming about her trauma, the pain and escapism unfold together in her mind – painting everything she sees. Although Hoard isn’t perfect, it’s a wonderfully strange debut that crawls around your brain afterwards like rodents through rubbish.
ON TV THIS WEEK
Trying season 4, AppleTV+ (Wednesday 22 May)
For All Mankind is often remarked upon as the most underrated series on AppleTV+. Fair enough, I haven’t seen that drama, but I feel like the adoption sitcom Trying isn’t talked about enough. Esther Smith and Rafe Spall star as wannabe parents Nikki and Jason, whose dreams effectively came true at the end of last season.
Now, jumping ahead six years, the series explores the couple in the thick of their parenting journey. Their now-teenage adopted daughter Princess (Scarlett Rayner) is growing curious about her birth mother, plunging Nikki and Jason into a new and difficult challenge.
Bay of Fires, ITX
Alongside the BBC with Colin From Accounts and The Newsreader, ITVX is embracing a slew of culture from Down Under. After The Twelve and Vanishing Act, a new and slightly trashy Australian thriller finds itself on the streaming platform: Bay of Fires.
Successful CEO of ProperAus Finance Stella Heikkinen (Marta Dusseldorp) is suddenly thrust into danger when two hitmen are sent to kill her. In order to protect herself and her family, Stella needs to go into hiding under a new name. Unfortunately, the remote Tasmanian village to which she’s sent is the last place she’d feel comfortable…
The Beach Boys, Disney+ (Friday 24 May)
Disney+ has grown into the central streaming hub for modern Beatlemania with Peter Jackson’s eight-hour Get Back epic, the re-released Let It Be documentary, and (for international subscribers) the recent Beatles-adjacent episode of Doctor Who. It’s only natural that they’d next embrace one of the band’s top rivals: The Beach Boys.
Directors Frank Marshall (Rather, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart) and Thom Zimny (Willie Nelson & Family) tackle this documentary film tracing the origins of the iconically Californian 60s rock band. The doc features interviews with many of the main members as well as music biz aficionados like Janelle Monáe and Don Was.
IN CINEMAS THIS WEEK
Furiosa, dir. George Miller
For Anya Taylor-Joy fans disappointed in her few seconds of screentime in Dune: Part Two, the madly dystopian Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga rectifies that by placing her front-and-centre. In this prequel to George Miller’s 2015 reboot Mad Max: Fury Road, Taylor-Joy plays the fierce female lead Furiosa who’s snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers to face the Biker Hoard in a blazing wasteland.
Given the reviews, it’s safe to say that – much like the 2015 film – Furiosa will be all action and little story. I didn’t take to the original for that reason, but the action sequences are guaranteed to be excellent spectacles.
In Flames, dir. Zarrar Kahn
Pakistani film In Flames looks at a family in Karachi, grieving over the loss of their patriarch grandfather. Medical student Mariam (Ramesha Nawel) struggles to support her family, and disaster looms when an estranged uncle returns to take over as the new patriarch. The film explores themes of trauma and internalised abuse with a strange undercurrent of magical realism (comparable to Guillermo del Toro).
IN THE WORKS
The Cannes Film Festival is now well underway: Francis Ford Coppola’s divisive epic Megalopolis, Yorgos Lanthimos’ loopy anthology Kinds of Kindness, and George Miller’s thrilling Mad Max prequel Furiosa premiered this week. All have been lauded and derided, which – I’ll be honest – makes me want to watch them more. It seems universally agreed, however, that Megalopolis wields a fascinating madness regardless of boos and ovations. I’ve mentioned it for weeks in these newsletters because its intrigue continues to roll in waves – chief among them is the remarkable absence of a distributor at time of writing, despite the CEO of IMAX stating he’s committing to screen the film. However, according to Indiewire, Andrea Arnold’s Bird starring Barry Keoghan is the current favourite to win the Palme d’Or.
First-look photos of The Last of Us season 2 released. An exciting announcement, showing images of both Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) returning to one of last year’s best shows. As a fan of the video games, it’s a massive relief that the series adaptation was as brilliant as it was: capturing the vibe and basic structure of the original while branching into its own beautiful fungus. The second game is one of my favourite gaming experiences, the storytelling enhanced to embrace an innovative nonlinear structure I hadn’t seen since the David Cage game Beyond: Two Souls. Considering season one jumps back and forward in time, I wonder if they’re setting up a similar method. The second game was also considerably more controversial… because they deigned to include LGBT+ characters. In my mind, it was a historic moment in video game history and shouldn’t be undermined. Hopefully, showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann will match and maybe even outdo the queer representation in season two.
Netflix renews 3 Body Problem, in a slightly confusing annoncement. The new series from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss, based on the sci-fi novels by Cixin Liu, is currently in my top five favourite shows of the year (sitting below Ripley, Shogun and True Detective: Night Country). But it’s interesting that the buzz isn’t as galactic as the premise. Perhaps this is why the Netflix’s renewal took the ambiguous form of ‘additional episodes’ rather than ‘season two’. What does this mean? Netflix’s algorithm is still difficult to decipher, with many much-loved shows being cancelled in their first seasons. 3 Body Problem spent three weeks in the coveted No.1 spot, but maybe that wasn’t enough to warrant the three or four seasons that Benioff had initially hoped for. Maybe this it’s just a soft way of saying that the series is being cancelled after season two.
TRAILER PARK
Megalopolis, dir. Francis Ford Coppola
Dune: Prophecy, Sky Atlantic (?)
House of the Dragon season 2, Sky Atlantic
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2, Prime Video
The Shrouds, dir. David Cronenberg
Only Murders in the Building season 4, Disney+
It Ends With Us, dir. Justin Baldoni
Wicked, dir. Jon M Chu