aarpcats

Meryl Streep plays a young Carrie Fisher, at a time when Meryl was twice the age that Carrie would have been at the time. The juxtaposition was so awful that it is one of the few Streep performances in which it is more about Meryl Streep than the character she is playing.

Not to be outdone, Shirley MacLaine, one of the actresses other actresses are so afraid of that they don't want to be cast with her, plays the kind and polite Debbie Reynolds as an odd version of Shirley MacLaine. She's great as a comic Shirley MacLaine, but neither looks nor acts like Debbie Reynolds.

Fisher was a great writer, but it's hard to pay attention to the movie, which flits from one actress chewing the scenery to the next. The book is much better than the movie, unless you are looking for a lesson in overindulgence of Hollywood egos.

Before you watch this movie, look at the interview that inspired it. Letorneau is fresh out of a psychiatrist hospital, and CLEARLY has not yet adjusted to her medications. Fualaau, who for what appears to be the first time, finally understands that he was the victim of an adult predator. Not only does he understand that he has been victimized, but he understands that he is married to his abuser and has children with her.

Does a man child's pain sound like fodder for a black comedy to you?!?! Me, neither.

The actors in this movie are terrific. In the right hands, they might have been part of a good movie. However, this is not a good movie. It's a gimmicky attempt to milk one more buck out of a tragedy.

I found it distasteful. I think it revictimizes the victim.

High school is indeed hell on earth. Most of us only have to spent four years there. Imagine the horror of the four years becoming eternity!

On the surface, this series is one more supernatural teen drama churned out by Netflix for the TikTok generation. The impossibly attractive cast of twenty to thirty year olds don't look like teenagers, the script is redundant and predictable, and every character is a trope that has wandered in from another supernatural teen drama.

What sets this series apart is the writing. The writers stubbornly resist the urge to have any character be all good or all bad. They rely instead on the Jungian idea that characters (and people) are motivated by "shadows."

The shadow is the part of personality that is repressed by our conscious selves. We hide it from ourselves, but the people around us see it come out in our self defeating actions.

In this case, our heroine, Maddie, has a boyfriend who loves her, a bright future at Northwestern, and two ride or die friends who adore her. However, in the dark basement of her high school, Maddie loses everything,

The mystery here is an actual mystery. The characters are likable and interesting. The story is sadly familiar to everyone who has lived with an alcoholic, and the ending is intriguing.

Watch it. You'll like it.