When Sherlock debuted on PBS and the BBC
in 2010, one of the many, many remarkable things about it was Benedict
Cumberbatch's extraordinary job taking a character that dozens of actors have
played to the point of making him a caricature, thrusting him into the modern
era, and making him a fully dimensional and evolving human being. He managed to
make Sherlock Holmes vital, while doing so much to keep insulated and
restrained. He more than deserved the Emmy he got.
Cumberbatch has played many more
memorable characters on the big screen, many of them icons in their own right -
Marvel's Dr. Strange, Star Trek's Khan
- and others just as fascinating - Julian Assange and Alan Turing are among the
most famous. So at this point, you would find it hard to imagine that he could
be capable of surprise. Or so you'd think. Because Showtime and SKY
TV in Britain have collaborated to put Cumberbatch in the title role of Patrick Melrose, a character at the
center of five world famous short novels by Edward St. Aubyn. I have not read any of these novels, but
based on what I saw in the premiere episode, that may not necessarily be a
detriment to the average viewer.
In the first episode 'Bad News',
Patrick learns of the death of his father, played by another iconic character
actor (Hugo Weaving). His reaction is more joyous than mournful - he gets drunk
and visits both his girlfriend and his mistress, saying he plans to give up
drugs. He then flies to New York
to pick up his father's body, fully drunk, and then lasts all of five minutes
before going to Central Park to get hooked up. (The
first episode is set in 1982, which makes a lot more sense to the modern
viewer.) He then goes to the funeral home, acknowledges the body, meets with
friends, and has dinner all the while trying to deny that he needs heroin in a
frankly hysterical inner monologue that often leaves his own head. Eventually,
he goes to a very seedy lot to get a fix, and then visits his hookup to get
cocaine. Things accelerate downhill, as he burns his hand, floods his room,
pokes his eyes, drinks with his father's friends, has a disastrous date (with
his father's ashes in tow) and tries to
destroy his hotel room. All the while, it becomes increasingly clear that their
is some deep trauma going on with his father, going back to his childhood, a very clear problem with his mother (who
can't be bothered to leave charity work in Africa to go to the funeral), and
some woman named Evelyn (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
All of this is much more
entertaining then it sounds, because Cumberbatch turns everything up to eleven.
Anyone who saw Sherlock knows how
good he was with snark, but there was always a certain measure of restraint.
Patrick Melrose clearly has none (the alcohol and drugs probably don't help),
and watching him unload on everybody, not always intentionally is hysterically
funny, even as we realize we really shouldn't
be laughing at this.
Nothing else in the first episode
quite measures up to it, though Alison Williams does a decent job as the
unfortunate woman who Patrick has his disastrous date with. (There's clearly
some very bad history there; Patrick refreshes her parents memory's by
reminding them, he overdosed in their bathtub, and that they had to tear down
the door to save him). Also, there's clearly a level of confusion and
disconnect here, brought on by the fact that the episode was based on the second novel in the series. Oddly
enough, I think it worked in the series favor; Patrick's lost weekend is so
skewed and chaotic that much of the time we felt a lot more in his head. What
remains unclear is whether the series can find a direction from here.
Nevertheless, in Cumberbatch we
trust. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, he doesn't exactly chew the scenery, but he
sure as hell snorts it. And to see this actor unplugged and loose in a way he's
really never been before, is far more entertaining then a lot of other TV. I
suspect he will be in the Emmy conversation once again.
My score: 4 stars.
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