Review: Those About to Die; Lady in the Lake; The Jetty; Simone Biles Rising

Those About to Die Amazon Prime Video
Lady in the Lake Apple TV+
The Jetty (BBC One) | iPlayer
Simone Biles Rising Netflix

When was the last time you thought about the Roman empire? The question might have become a well-worn joke on social media over the past year, but one subset of people who clearly think about it all the time are studio executives. With Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2 gathering buzz and Roman shows such as Sky Atlantic’s Domina and Germany’s Barbarians airing in recent years, the ancient imperial power is on the corporate brain.

The latest series to carry this toga-wearing, sword-toting mantle is Amazon Prime’s Those About to Die . Billing itself somewhere between the bloodthirsty world-building of Game of Thrones and the acerbic power plays of Succession , this 10-episode series centres on a grumbling Anthony Hopkins as the elderly emperor Vespasian, who must choose between his two sons, the brawny Titus (Tom Hughes) and brainy Domitian (Jojo Macari), to lead an increasingly fractious empire. While the royals bicker in their gilded thrones, we also follow the political manoeuvring of rival chariot-racing factions in the Circus Maximus, the plight of an enslaved family, and an underground betting ring.

If that sounds like a lot to keep track of, it is. In the first 10 minutes of the pilot alone, we switch between four locations and witness a murder, a lion hunt, and a conversation about the Roman shipping forecast. Couple this with CGI that looks like it’s been made for a Windows XP screensaver, accents that vary from Welsh to English, Italian and French, and clichéd lines (“friends close, enemies closer”!) that even have the Oscar-winning Hopkins fighting for his life, and Those About to Die quickly becomes a confusing mess. It doesn’t have the confident scene-setting or stakes to rival Game of Thrones , nor the depth of character to come close to Succession. Instead, it’s an ideal watch while scrolling through Roman memes on your phone.

On Thanksgiving in 1966, a young Jewish girl goes missing in Baltimore, a marriage falls apart and a Black community is torn between organized crime and the fight for civil rights. Such is the snappy premise of Lady in the Lake , a slick, seven-part adaptation of Laura Lippman’s bestselling novel, which examines the media’s differing attitudes to two missing women from communities both subject to prejudice.

Screening on Apple TV+, the show follows the streamer’s formula of attracting star talent to lead a glossy crime series, here enlisting Natalie Portman, in her first TV series, as disgruntled housewife Maddie Schwartz. The kind of affectless performance that made Portman perfect for the celebrity cynicism of Todd Haynes’s 2023 film May December also works well here, lending Schwartz a dispassionate glaze as she reckons with a life that consists of making lamb brisket for her obnoxious husband, Milton (Brett Gelman – reprising the arrogance of his role as Fleabag ’s Martin) – and her equally nasty son Seth (Noah Jupe).

When a local girl, 11-year-old Tessie, is abducted, Maddie is spurred into action – cue plate-smashing and a hastily packed suitcase as she reignites her high school fascination with journalism to join the hunt. Meanwhile, Cleo (Moses Ingram) toes the line between enduring prejudice at her department store job or being lured into the underworld of gambling via her evening gig at a Baltimore bar.

Director Alma Ha’rel’s confident hand gives the show an unusual aesthetic, with rapidly changing perspectives and artful visual motifs of mirror reflections and blood trails. Let down only by a clunky voiceover from beyond the grave, Lady in the Lake is a stylish and promising take on the well-worn genre of the missing persons thriller, providing a peep through the curtain at Baltimore’s Jewish and Black communities without overexplaining or patronising the viewer.

Closer to home – the tight-knit community of a fictional northern town – The Jetty (BBC One) begins as a predictable disappointment. The improbably named DC Ember Manning (Jenna Coleman) is a recently widowed mom of one who sleeps with a knife under her pillow; podcaster Riz (Weruche Opia) is investigating missing young women in small towns; and when a young woman falls to her death, dodgy local family the Ashbys become the prime suspects.

Gloomy, peppered with flatly delivered cringe-inducing lines such as “this place is like the A to Z of misogyny, and V is for victim blaming”, The Jetty has all the ingredients of a forgettable British crime-by-numbers drama destined for the graveyard slot of Monday nights in July. Yet, clunky dialogue and comedy names aside, a parallel narrative charting two teenage girls’ relationship with wayward older man Malachy ( House of the Dragon ’s Tom Glynn-Carney) is intriguingly ambiguous, providing enough tension to keep viewers guessing. When the first episode closes on a remarkable twist, the payoff is enough to elevate this into a series worth watching, providing one of a handful of moments throughout the show that examines the uncomfortable line between innocence and power.

With the Olympics beginning this week, all eyes will be on the gymnast with the most medals of all time, Simone Biles, as she makes her comeback from a disastrous performance at the 2020 Tokyo games. Netflix’s new four-part documentary series Simone Biles Rising charts Biles’s shock exit in Japan after experiencing a bout of the “twisties” – a psychological episode where an athlete’s brain feels disconnected from the movement of their body. Biles experienced a huge social media backlash at the time for choosing to withdraw on mental health grounds, and the film features remarkable real-time footage of her decision, from an emotional call with her foster mom to reckoning with her own choices while alone in her Tokyo hotel room.

Ultimately tracing an inspiring arc of redemption – Biles is on track to dominate in Paris – the series asks important questions about the expectations we place on young athletes to succeed at all costs. A particularly painful moment captures Biles’s reaction to fellow US gymnast Kerri Strug having pressure put on her to compete with a visible injury in 1996 – “I thought she was badass,” Biles comments regretfully – while hopeful optimism comes courtesy of her recent marriage to NFL player Jonathan Owens and their domestic bliss, which acts as a counterpoint to all the Olympic pressure.

Packed as it is with jaw-dropping slow-motion footage of Biles’s vaults and leaps, it’s impossible to come away from Rising without rooting for this astounding woman, who has dominated her sport for a decade.

Star ratings (out of five)
Those About to Die ★★
Lady in the Lake ★★★★
The Jetty ★★★
Simone Biles: Rising ★★★★

Source: The Guardian