Sunday Blog #8: Eric, We Are Lady Parts series 2
'Everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one thinks about changing themselves.'
You can’t look away from Benedict Cumberbatch, even in the bad films. I last saw him in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, one of the worst entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but one that orbits around him. Cumberbatch has a rare talent of straddling the line between self-interested villainy and frustrated heroism. When they choose the former, his characters plunge deep like Smaug in The Hobbit movies, Dominic Cummings in Brexit: The Uncivil War or the closeted cowboy Phil Burbank in The Power of the Dog. But his heroes like Sherlock Holmes and Alan Turing have such a furious, arrogant drive that social niceties become obstacles.
My favourite of his performances is as Patrick Melrose, the aristocratic addict creation of Edward St Aubyn (whose semi-autobiographical novels were adapted for the small screen by David Nicholls in 2018). Not only does Patrick contain many of the nuances outlined above, but his character also pokes into an elite and traumatic upbringing that shatters the refined image of upper class existence. Similar and even more toxic features can be found in Eric, the new and slightly surreal missing-persons drama penned by Abi Morgan (The Split, The Hour, Shame). As a result, it’s one of Cumberbatch’s best roles to date: skilfully bridging that wide, performative gap between hero and villain.
Vincent (Cumberbatch) is a father, husband and maestro puppeteer in 80s New York, aggressively obsessed with his creations and vehemently opposed to authority. He argues with his colleagues about proposed changes to their popular kids’ show Good Day Sunshine, which is basically a version of The Muppets or Sesame Street. But despite the mirth of seeing Vincent perform on-set for a studio audience, there’s something not quite right. I think it’s the colours: Benedict Spence’s cinematography is splashed with dingy yellows and sharpened blacks (Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver was used as an early influence). And so, that conflict between iridescent childhood fantasies and grim adult realities builds from the start.
I feel that’s the crux of Vincent: a man deprived of a loving childhood, driven to being a raging misanthrope in every aspect of his life. He fights with his co-workers, his fed-up wife Cassie (Gaby Hoffmann), and even his artistic son Edgar (Ivan Morris Howe). But despite shitty and controlling behaviour, he clearly sees something in his one and only child. Vincent has paternal love and vicarious empathy… it’s just not expressed properly. When Edgar goes missing after another night of tempestuous arguments between his parents, their lives spiral into a chaos that Vincent can’t control. That’s when a sweary, slurring seven-foot monster puppet called Eric appears. He's the embodiment of Edgar’s own sketches, and Vincent utilises him to find his son.
But there’s much more happening in this six-part Netflix series than the slightly surrealistic premise. 80s New York is a catalyst for transition, infected by hierarchal corruption at the highest levels. Abi Morgan’s created an immersive world in which evils writhing in City Hall, the precinct, The Lux nightclub, the sanitation department, and the homeless population (living underground) all feed off each other. Detective Ledroit (a fierce, beautiful performance by McKinley Belcher III) is one of the good ones, determined to stamp out the corruption – much of which is motivated by racism, classism and homophobia.
I have a theory that Morgan wanted another episode or two to flesh out this world, since the introductions to many significant members of its population feel slightly rushed. Sometimes you’re in a daze about who’s connected to whom and in what way, but this works for the kind of chaos within which the series pushes forward. I won’t spoil the ending, but Eric leaves on a difficult, bittersweet note: one that places horror and happiness side by side. You can’t trust that half of happiness either, given the surrounding artifice – reminding me of the fake robin at the end of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. The end is like another deception, another puppet we pretend is real.
Punk rock releases a hidden rage inside you, the thing you kept secret, the id behind the ego. It’s the desire not to settle or conform or reshape yourself to fit other people’s standards. I reckon punk-haters love benefitting from the way things are, or maybe their mental landscapes reach only as far as a correctly placed fork.
Maybe I’m a hypocrite: I come from a privileged family and, despite being unemployed and barely reaching above my overdraft, I’ve never had any true money troubles – and yet I love punk: a genre birthed out of cashless fury. Maybe it’s because, as an anxious introvert with cerebral palsy, I’ve always felt like a bit of an outlier. And being different (like the mantra of Good Day Sunshine, see above) is the beating heart of punk. The screams and shouts and grit of the music tears that anger from me – as it does for the the feminist Muslim punk band in We Are Lady Parts, Nida Manzoor’s musical sitcom on Channel 4. It’s a joy to be in their furiously funny company.
Lady Parts is enjoying its first taste of success: regularly playing at venues with the dream glimmer of a record deal on the horizon. They’re loud and outspoken, but there’s a curious sensitivity ingrained in each woman. Guitarist Amina (Anjana Visan), the PhD student who narrates the series, is entering her ‘villain era’ – not willing to take shit from anyone and even daring to date a white guy. The punkiest member Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey) despises anything too ‘capitalisty’, but finds she has to submit to reap the benefits. Ayesha (Juliette Motamed), the drummer with excellent eyeliner, is reluctant to come out to her parents despite having a girlfriend. And Bisma (Faith Omole) is a loving, caring member, but grapples with her identity as a Black Muslim mother – so beautifully expressed in the heartbreaking song Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.
The jokes are funny, and I adore the London-based diversity – but it’s the songs that really make it. Everything gravitates around and provides delicious context for the music. Lady Parts tackles everything from late night emails (Villain Era) to Malala Yousafzai (Malala Made Me Do It, which features the activist herself) to patriarchal, white supremacist control (Glass Ceiling Feeling), the latter of which has some banging lyrics:
Supercalifraga-racist-sexist-xenophobic
Is it us or is it them? Why they trying to own us?
Supercalifragi-losers-lonely-sad-and-broken
Overwhelmed and nominal, living in slow-motion
All the songs are available as an album on Spotify, and I’ve been listening to them over and over. There’s even a fist-pumping cover of Britney’s Oops!... I Did It Again, which I think I prefer to the original. Despite little time passing, it’s hard to imagine not having these songs in my life – forcing me to engage with my day or with dark truths buried inside. That’s the beauty of We Are Lady Parts, and that’s the beauty of punk.
TRAILER PARK
Pachinko season 2, AppleTV+
The Bear season 3, Disney+
The Outrun, dir. Nora Fingscheidt
The Umbrella Academy season 4, Netflix
Last Summer, dir. Catherine Breillat
Wolfs, dir. Jon Watts
A Family Affair, dir. Richard LaGravenese