Dark Crime Mystery Thriller Series On Max Is A Perfect One-Day Binge
If you love thrillers, Amy Adams, books turned into series, or all of the above, you must watch Sharp Objects on Max. It’s got everything you could ask for in a psychological crime thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.
Another Hit Series Based On The Work Of Gillian Flynn
Gillian Flynn hit the film fans’ radar when her psychological thriller Gone Girl was adapted as a film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. The movie did a great job of following the book closely, and readers and audiences raved about it. I, for one, ran out and bought her other books.
I was so impressed by her writing and twisted imagination. So, of course, Flynn readers like myself were beyond delighted to discover another of her books, Sharp Objects, which was not only adapted for the screen but turned into a series on HBO, now Max. So much more to love!
A Flawed Point Of View Character
Sharp Objects follows an alcoholic reporter, Camille Preaker, with serious emotional issues who returns to her small hometown in Missouri to cover a series of murders. From the beginning, we see Camille (played brilliantly by Amy Adams) engaging in self-harm by cutting herself with “sharp objects.”
She has done this for many years as she has to wear long sleeves and pants so no one can see the scars all over her body that have resulted from her actions. She slips liquor into her coffee, drinks straight from a bottle, and lures Detective Richard Willis (played by Chris Messina) into a sexual affair while the two are on the case.
Childhood Trauma Poorly Handled
Camille is only in Wind Gap, her hometown, at the behest of her editor, and she reluctantly returns to the large, sprawling plantation home of her childhood, where she is greeted rather matter-of-factly by her mother, Adora (played by Patricia Clarkson), her stepfather, Alan (played by Henry Czemy), and her much younger teenage sister, Amma (played by Eliza Scanlen). Quickly, Camille begins having dark flashbacks of the trauma she endured in her childhood home, and she continues to employ sharp objects to deal with her emotions.
Two Dark Stories Moving In Parallel
The murders of two young girls, one 13 and one 14, are at the center of this story, but as the investigation unfolds, we see both Camille dealing with her own childhood experiences in flashbacks and Amma confronting the reality of living in this same house. Amma reveals her distaste for the way their mother treats her, but she behaves like a much younger child to cope.
So, we have two storylines playing out in Sharp Objects. In one, young girls are being murdered and left out on display. In another, Camille is disturbed by her own past and the possibility that her sister is experiencing similar trauma to her own, though we still don’t know what that is. The acting and directing in this series, which runs for eight one-hour episodes, is dark, engaging, intriguing, and contains an ever-present threat of violence.
Streaming Exclusively On Max
REVIEW SCORE
This role for Amy Adams is the first time I had seen her play anything other than bright, sweet, sunny, and chipper, and it was quite a character for her to embody. Even by the end of Sharp Objects, you’re not sure if there’s a possibility for redemption for Camille, and you can only hope that Amma might make a better pathway through life. Gillian Flynn certainly knows how to take her readers to dark places, and creator Marti Noxon and director Jean-Marc Vallee follow the emotion and sentiment of the book perfectly.
Sharp Objects is not a feel good story, but it is a story well told and one worth watching. Stream it now on Max.
