Sharp Objects: Episode 2 "Dirt"
Tuesday, July 17, 2018 at 10:00AM Previously: Episode 1 "Vanish"
Go report somewhere else. Let these people be"
by Nathaniel R
Team Experience has decided to pass the baton each week on Sharp Objects for different perspectives / takes on the show. Two episodes in I think that seems fitting. While the show is focused on one woman's perspective, albeit not in a first-person narrative way, its shard-like editing is disorientingly multiple in feeling, as if Camille (Amy Adams) can't shake any of her past selves but also can't just be in any moment with herself. The communal self, the incestuously local population of depressed sweaty Wind Gap, Missouri, isn't any easier for her.
The second episode "Dirt" revolves around the funeral of Natalie Keene, a young girl murdered by an unknown killer. Detective Willis (from Kansas City... and our dreams) fears it's a serial situation given a similar early crime in Wind Gap. Willis and Camille do their own individual digging while Adora (Patricia Clarkson) continually bristles at her daughter Camille's reporting...
Two episodes in Adora makes little sense, though I can't take my eyes off of Patty (no surprise there), and her bristling could be comic, with just a half inch tonal shift. How insane to think that reporting and detective work on a crime is more disruptive to a community than serial killing! That's some batshit next level 'don't rock the boat' conformity.
Camille wonders how Adora knew the dead girls so well. In one of Clarkson's best line readings, dripping with exhausted condescencion, as if her grown daughter is a small child, who has been tugging at her clothes asking the same question again and again.
Camille, I'm very involved in our community. It's our family's duty.
Sharp Objects is good at atmosphere. We get a good sense of the heat, the people watching each other, the local haunts. We understand quickly much they value conformity which shows up in all sorts of ways including kneejerk homophobia (the dead girl's brother is assumed to be queer), and suspicion of outsiders. One of the most intriguing touches, a welcome regressed mirror of Camille's own adolescent discomfort with her stifling home town, are the small rebellions of the local teenage girls. They steal flowers from the tribute sites. They rollerskate into stores. They even make jokes about the killing. This last bit is too much for Camille. She reminds them that young girls are being targeted. The retort is both juvenile and authentic "not the cool ones."
Atmosphere: check. Storytelling: TBD. Two episodes in, I have to confess: I'm not sure I like Sharp Objects. With its perpetual scenes of Camille driving accompanied by a constant and self-consciously eclectic mix tape of a soundtrack it recalls Big Little Lies, also a murder mystery of sorts, without that shows buoyant wit and endearing female camarederie. It's meth-addled Southern grimness recalls True Detective without that show's dizzying philosophizing or labyrinthine plotting. Mostly it appears to be biding its time, in no rush to get anywhere, either content in observational character-portraits (and we've already had two full hours of unsubtle take on Camille's alcoholism and self-harm) or unable to access 8 hours worth of story.
But rather than grouse I leave you with a few stray observations:
Jackie -- Inside voice. It's a funeral.
FAVORITE SCENE: The funeral. Please filmmakers, give us two-shots and three-shots all the time. Seeing multiple actors performing in a single frame is always a thrill and all too rare. This is a way film doesn't have to be inferior to the stage but often chooses to be with its endless shot-reverse shot closeups, a refusal to let actors act together . This scene is so inappropriately funny and also upsetting. And Adora and Camille's battle over the note-taking is riveting actorly 'business'
THE DOLLHOUSE. Hereditary has ruined me on dollhouses. I keep expecting the dollhouse to have horrific reflections of the serial killing plot at any moment. But for now it's just a dollhouse, albeit a narcissistic one, the Crellin household in miniature.
WHO DAT? Who is this guy staring at Camille and we should note that for further plot points we assume?
THE MAID. Get Out has ruined me on smiling subservient smiling black housekeepers in grey maid outfits. I keep expecting her to have a killer "no no no no no no no no" moment. But I do love the uncomfortable bit when Adora offers to cut Camille's apple for her only to hand it to the maid.
CHRIS MESSINA. He looks lonely. Can we take him home to comfort him? Please? Why is Chris Messina so dreamy and also: why isn't he in more things? Perhaps filmmakers don't realize how sexy he is since he is not traditionally leading man handsome? [Sudden realization while typing up this paragraph: OH RIGHT. MESSINA WAS ALSO PAIRED WITH ADAMS IN JULIE & JULIA. They're a good match onscreen.]
THE ADULT MEAN GIRLS SCENE. That was a little broad, wasn't it?
ADORA'S MICRO AND MACRO AGRESSIONS. The nonaffectionate relationship between Camille and Adora in flashback (that funeral memory of Adora rejecting Camille's attempts to comfort her. Ouch!) and in present tense (Camille brushing her own face with Adora's discarded fake eyelash. Ouch my heart again!) is already the most potent aspect of the series and I hope -- I haven't read the book -- that it's the meat of the thing in the end. Because otherwise who needs one more mystery about dead girls?
Reader Comments (10)
I am not exactly loving it, but will keep watching for Amy and Patricia. A small town with secrets, a mega-dysfunctional family, a seriously damaged heroine who keeps damaging herself, a serial killer on the loose, upper class vs. lower class hate across generations... Yawn. It's all familiar and has been done to death. If not for Amy, I would have already given up on it.
Hopefully, there are some worthwhile surprises and payoffs to come. Hopefully.
I'm very much enjoying this show, that funeral scene was aweswome! Also one of the best things about the show is the flashbacks and those hidden words.
Great post!
I also am not loving it, though this episode was much better than the pilot. (While BLL had just about the most engaging pilot, this one was a breath away from boring).
I have enough faith in Amy Adams and especially Patricia Clarkson to keep on watching. I’m pretty confident I already have the killer figured out. I guessed during the pilot, and something in this week’s episode made me think I must be right. So, I’ll keep watching for that, too. Lol
I need a YNMS on Boy Erased like 4 hours ago. Wipe your tears and share your opinion. Lol btw I’m still teary eyed after watching the trailer like 20 times.
Kirsten Dunst would have been ideal casting here...
I watched the second and have a better sense of what they are going for, even if I still feel like the flashbacks are random and it was edited in a blender. My only suggestion would have been to put in some better context as to why Amy Adams is a "cutter." We get her past trauma, but I don't necessarily see the connection to cutting for this character played by Amy Adams. Has she ever told anyone or gotten help? Why does she do it? And this is very much a guy thing, but the lack of detail or attention regarding solving the murder investigation makes it less interesting to me. Maybe cohesion was not their goal. Still, I do think the flashbacks are spooky and effectively portray fractured memory from trauma, and Amy, Patricia and Elizabeth Perkins are good and keep it somewhat interesting. I will watch #3 to see how it evolves.
I read the book Nat and its very very dark and im waiting to see the display on TV. Love Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson!!! Give it some time and you will be blown away with it. Grettings from Mexico!!!
Anyone else find Perkins much more interesting here than Adams and Clarkson?
What's your take on The Handmaid's Tale?
I have read the book when it first came out. I am enjoying the mini series, although I think stringing it out for 8 episodes is a little much.
Adams is doing a great job... and it does all fall into place in the end.