My Review of Industry - Season 1 (2020, HBO/BBC1)

 

Written by Mickey Down And Konrad Kay

Directed by Lena Dunham And Tinge Krishnan And Ed Lilly And Mary Nighy

Harper: "I only want to ever be judged on the strength of my abilities."

Eric: "And paid for it."

It should go without saying that I've been late to this party and for that, I do apologise. As much as I wished I had caught onto this show sooner, I've finally decided to watch it from the start and I now see why so many have gravitated towards it so much.

Set in the cooperate world of investment banking, this show introduced five new entry level workers - Harper Stern (Myha'la Herrold), Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela), Gus Sackey (David Jonsson), Hari Dhar (Nabhaan Rizwan) and Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey) into the world of Pierpoint & Co abd needless to say, it's a tough world to be a part of.

Yes, the trading/banking industry has been portrayed as a ruthless and mercenary one and within the first episode, Hari ended up working himself to death as a result of the environment being such a pressure cooker. I mean, it's a really brutal world as the four remaining protagonists found out.

This first season alone largely focused on Harper, Yasmin and Robert with Gus getting less screentime than the other three. For Gus, he's got a good friendship with Robert, the fallout of Hari's death and a relationship with a closeted research analyst named Theo Tuck (Will Tudor). I would've liked more screen time with Gus.

That's not to say that Harper, Yasmin and Robert because they are and it's not surprising that those characters and respective actors have become the face of the show. There's a lovely triangle of sorts with the three of them throughout the first season that can be as frustrating as it was interesting. Outside of that, there's plenty of tension with the way they navigate themselves professionally.

Harper in particular was shown to be an utterly ruthless character. She ended up being a protégé for Eric Tao (Ken Leung) while occasionally stoking her line manager, Daria Greenock's (Freya Mavor) ire. Then there's also Harper's dynamic with client Nicole Craig (Sarah Parish) and the way Pierpoint often failed to seriously tackle issues such as sexual harassment.

Yasmin and Robert by comparison were a lot less ruthless but also rather determined to prove themselves. Yasmin tolerated abuse from Kenny Kilbane (Conor MacNeill) until she didn't while managing to bring in a new client with mixed results. As for Robert, there's a nice subplot with his manager, Clement Cowan (Derek Riddell) as well as hints of him having a less privileged background compared to the rest of his peers.

- Episode titles were Induction, Quiet And Nice, Notting Hill, Sesh, Learned Behaviour, Nutcracker, Pre-Crisis Activity and Reduction In Force.

- While the show wasn't shy in sex scenes and overall nudity, one of the most shocking scenes was Robert allowing Usman Abboud (Amir El-Masry) to snort cocaine off a certain area during the office Christmas party.

- There's a few hints of Robert being bisexual but mostly he spent the season trying to get closer to Yasmin. A threesome with Harper almost happened in the penultimate episode.

- There's some supporting performances from Priyanga Burford (Sara), Ben Lloyd-Hughes (Greg), Mark Dexter (Hilary), Andrew Buchan (Felim) and Caoilfhionn Dunne (Jackie) to name but a few.

- Standout music: Nathan Micay's score was nice, there's certain Christmas songs used well in the sixth episode and the title sequence was short but I like it.

- Chronology: The first season seemed to span over several months before our main characters got officially hired at Pierpoint.

Better late than never I guess. This was a brilliant debut season, throwing both the audience and these characters into the cutthroat world of finance. The characters are flawed, believable and engrossing to watch.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

My Review of The Beauty: "Beautiful Christopher Cross"

 

Written by Ryan Murphy And Matthew Hodgson 

Directed by Ryan Murphy 

Jeremy: "What do you need?"

The Assassin: "A protégé. A killer."

Oh now this was quite an episode. The decision to pair Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope as actors. Brilliant. These two work so well together. They're easily the highlight of the whole episode. I'm not kidding.

The Assassin started his day by killing the guy that infected Jordan before being ordered by Byron to clear up another mess caused by Dr. Dilegre. Yes, that pesky surgeon came afoul of The Assassin by not before tricking Jeremy into revealing his location.

Jeremy apparently didn't bother going home. Instead he stayed in that hotel and continued to sleep with and kill women. Then Jeremy found himself coming face to face with The Assassin and he was forced to bring the latter to the home of the last woman he slept with.

Needless to say the newly infected woman ended up being dead and Jeremy's lack of concern for his own life softened The Assassin's stance towards him. In fact, both The Assassin and Jeremy had riblets at Applebee's and by the end of the episode, the latter became a new protégé for the former.

As for The Corporation aka Byron Forst, well he's such an obnoxious jerk that even his wife, Franny (Isabella Rossellini) prayed for his demise. The woman had one scene and she already made me want to root for her. I do hope she gets to see Byron die in such a horrible manner.

Last but not least, the incident that was supposed to bring Cooper and Jordan back to New York was shown at the start of the episode. If you wanted to see someone going feral on Ben Platt and Meghan Trainor, then the character of Harper Rose (Amelia Gray Hamlin) more than sufficed in that regard. It's a comically violent opening scene that's capped off with Cooper back in New York to face the survivors of that incident.

- Jordan was a no show this episode, while Meyer advised Cooper to detach himself from her. Meyer also had some backstory about his brother.

- The Assassin's name was revealed to be Antonio, he had a son and he's 65. Jeremy's father abandoned him and Byron/Franny also have a son.

- Standout music: Phil Collins Easy Lover and Christopher Cross's Sailaway. The Assassin's a massive fan of the latter.

- Chronology: Venice, Croatia, New York and Indianapolis.

Beautiful Christopher Cross brought about a great double act with Anthony Ramos and Jeremy Pope. They're a brilliant pair to watch and got the best scenes of the episode. Everything else was pretty good too.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of The Beauty: "Beautiful Jordan"

 

Written by Ryan Murphy And Matthew Hodgson 

Directed by Alexis Martin Woodall 

Byron: "Beautiful people seem to think that the rules don't apply to them."

If we needed a face/villain for The Beauty, then low and behold, we've got Ashton Kutcher. I mean the guy's not the most likable of people in real life, so he's aptly cast as The Corporation here. He's also known as Byron Forst.

He's only given one scene in this episode and it's a scene where he's instructing his henchmen, known as The Assassin (Anthony Ramos) to dispose of a traitorous former partner named Mike (Joey Pollari). The Assassin's too good at his job because we don't get a chance to get to know Mike before he's promptly killed off.

With the bad guys making their presence known, we also had both Cooper and Jordan hitting up Venice before being ordered to go back to New York. I said in my review for the first episode that Cooper was more into Jordan than she was into him. This episode proved me right.

Jordan even took Cooper to task when his clear jealousy of her sleeping with other men reared it's head. Of course, Cooper also downplayed by pointing out how their job was incompatible with a relationship but Jordan didn't seem entirely convinced. However, the exciting stuff with them happened away from each other.

For Cooper, he was nearly killed by two men in black types in an action packed sequence that I didn't think Ryan Murphy had it in him to write. Nor did I expect Evan Peters to deliver quite the action man performance he did. Cooper got to be something of a bad ass in distress. Someone sign Evan Peters up for another action role now.

As for Jordan, she got the biggest shocker of the episode. She hooked up with a hot Italian guy, only for the episode to end with her being the latest recipient of that transformation. I guess it's goodbye Rebecca Hall and hello Jessica Alexander moving forward with the show. I'm surprised the show did this so early.

- The Assassin really did look like a Bond villain with a silver eye patch.

- How many people other than Byron are dispensing this miracle drug? Mike surely wasn't the only one. 

- Standout music: Massive Attack's Teardrop.

- Chronology: Mostly Venice bound for the whole episode. 

Beautiful Jordan was shorter than the opening episode (and likely won't be the only short episode this season) but the fact that it'd switch up actors this quickly, that genuinely surprised me. How will Cooper react to Jordan's new look when they meet again?

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of The Beauty: "Beautiful Pilot"

 

Written by Ryan Murphy And Matthew Hodgson

Directed by Ryan Murphy 

Jordan (to Cooper): "Beauty is pain, my friend."

What would happen if Ryan Murphy decided to go into the sphere of comic books? Well, he'd picked up an obscure title like this one and the results would be if Nip/Tuck and American Horror Story had a love child.

This ambitious, globetrotting show opened at the Balenciaga show in Paris where a model named Ruby (Bella Hadid) went feral on the crowd in order to quench her insatiable thirst. Spoiler alert: the thirst didn't quench, people died and she spontaneously combusted.

Ruby's violent death led to our protagonists - an FBI pairing of Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) and Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall). They're a likeable and seemingly competent pair who are also sleeping with each other on the side. Already, there's strong chemistry between Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall.

I can't believe how quickly I liked Cooper and Jordan. They genuinely had some funny banter between them and while I get the feeling that Cooper's feelings run deeper than Jordan's, both of them spark off each other so well. I guess this means that they're clearly doomed as the show will progress.

For the duration of this episode, they're in Paris and deep into trying to figure out what happened to make Ruby combust. This resulted in learning that Ruby along with other models that went the same way looked very different beforehand and their gorgeous features weren't plastic surgery related.

As the premise for the show made it clear, it's an STD that's caused this transformation. Cooper and Jordan's superior, Meyer (John Carroll Lynch) likened it to a cross between HIV and rabies but not quite. This episode also focused on another recepient of this treatment.

That recepient being an incel named Jeremy (Jaquel Spivry/Jeremy Pope). He was as stereotypical as you could get with his desperation making him a target for an exploitative surgeon, Dr. Dilegre (Jon Jon Briones) and some party girls. Eventually an encounter with a woman named Claire turned things around for him for the better. Jeremy became a Chad in almost no time whatsoever. 

- I had to laugh when the consultant referred to Glen Powell as a Chad seeing as that was the character the latter played in Scream Queens (2015-2016).

- We learned that Cooper's a former Navy SEAL, Jordan had a boob job and there seems to be a two year limit on the recipients of the Beauty.

- The show opened with a triple bill for FX. Half the regulars appeared in this first one.

- I know Cooper was likely joking about Grindr but if he hooks up with a man in a later episode, I won't complain.

- Standout music: The Prodigy's Firestarter and Modjo's Lady (Hear Me Tonight).

- Chronology: Current day Paris. Cooper and Jordan also left for Venice, Jeremy was from Jersey but travelled to Indianapolis and there were similar incidents in London and Berlin.

For an opening episode, Beautiful Pilot managed to have the right amount of everything needed. It wasn't too shocking or exploitative, set up the general premise well enough and gave us two likable leads in Cooper and Jordan. I'll catch up with the next two episodes within the next day.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Oddity (2024)

 

Written And Directed by Damian McCarthy 

Darci: "Curses are lifted at the time of purchase."

Yesterday I reviewed Damian McCarthy's debut Caveat (2021) and today, I'm gonna talk about his second one. These movies aren't connected to one another by the way. This one had a very different story.

The opening scene had a married couple - a psychiatrist named Ted Tinnis (Gwilyn Lee) and his wife, Dani (Carolyn Bracken). They're doing up a nice house in the middle of nowhere. Dani's at the house by herself one night when she encountered Olin Boole (Tadhg Murphy).

A year later and it turned out that Dani was murdered and Olin was the main suspect. Ted moved on to a new girlfriend named Yana (Caroline Menton) and the latter didn't particularly care for the fact that Ted had kept the house where his wife had been murdered. 

Yana was also less keen on the presence of Dani's twin sister, Darcy (Carolyn Bracken). It turned out that Darcy wasn't convinced that Olin killed Dani and wanted to track down the real killer. Yana just wanted to be as far away from Darcy as possible. Yana might have been the only sensible one here.

Taking some notes from his previous movie, once again we've got a killer husband. It turned out that Ted was cheating on Dani with Yara and hired creepy Ivan (Steve Wall) to do the job. Darcy tried to use a Golem in order to get revenge/justice but overestimated her brother in law.

The Golem plot was handled pretty well as it had been seeded throughout the movie along with Darcy's own abilities. There's hints of a comeuppance of sorts or Ted when he foolishly decided to ring a call bell. 

- I do like that the movie made an effort to make both Dani and Darcy look different from one another.

- We can add cannibalism to this movie as Ted managed to find cannibal to get rid of Ivan.

- There's more backstory for the character of Olin in a short film called How Olin Lost His Eye (2013).

- Chronology: Present day West Cork, filmed in the same location as the previous movie.

Oddity (2024) was definitely the stronger movie. I think Damian McCarthy really nailed the tension with all the characters and even delivered a stronger ending as well. He's an interesting voice for the Irish horror genre.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Caveat (2021)

 

Written And Directed by Damian McCarthy

Moe: "I don't see what the problem is. This is a job. Every job has a uniform."

Isaac: "That's not a uniform. It's a leash, and I'm not putting it on."

I thought it was time for some Irish horror this month and during the last two days, I watched the movies from Damian McCarthy. Needless to say that I preferred one over the other but both managed to intrigue me.

For this debut film from McCarthy, there was a man named Isaac (Johnny French). Hes got amnesia and he's a bit of a drifter. He's also been suckered into a job by his landlord, Moe Barrett (Ben Caplan). It's the kind of job that Isaac should've turned out. 

I mean, looking after Moe's niece, Olga (Leila Sykes) seemed simple enough but the girl was prone to catatonic attacks and for some reason, Isaac had to wear some harness that limited his mobility. Oh and he was stuck on a remote island. He definitely should've said no to this job.

Looking after Olga resulted in strange things happening rather quickly. It didn't take Isaac long to figure that Olga's mother (Inma Pavon) was murdered by her father (Conor Dwane) and Moe. Isaac also ringing the latter was also something that he shouldn't have done. 

I do think where the movie succeeded a bit more was the gradual reveal of Isaac's true relationship with both Olga and Moe. Isaac spent most of the film not remembering a past event, only for the reason why Moe wanted him looking after Olga to become clearer. After all, Isaac was responsible for the death of her father.

It's a good reveal and there's an interesting enough cat and mouse with Isaac, Olga and Moe as the three fight for survival from one another. Saying that, the movie did end on something of a frustrating note.

- The movie went to a few film festivals before it ended up getting released on Shudder.

- There's a dog in the movie that fortunately made it out of the movie alive.

- Isaac brought no supplies for a job that was going to last for five days.

- Chronology: The movie was filmed in West Cork and it's clearly meant to be set in Ireland in the present day.

For a debut horror, I'd say that Caveat was a modest start for writer/director Damian McCarthy. The ending was a letdown but mostly everything else prior to that worked well enough. 

Rating; 6 out of 10 

My Review of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: "The Hedge Knight"

Written by Ira Parker

Directed by Owen Harris

Egg (to Dunk): "Every knight needs a squire and you look like you need one more than most."

We go a year without a Game Of Thrones prequel show to enjoy and 2026 we get two of them. While the third season of House Of The Dragon won't air on HBO until the summer, this somewhat lighter show finally made it's modest debut.

Based on George R.R. Martin's Tales Of Dunk And Egg series, this opened with Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) burying his master, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb) while also claiming three horses as well. Oh and he really wanted to be a Knight.

That's pretty much the premise of this opening episode. Dunk was determined to get into a tourney and that meant encountering several characters along the way. The most important character being Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). Every knight needs a squire after all.

Egg's determination to become Dunk's squire, I'll admit it's admirable. He didn't give up until Dunk agreed and considering how nearly every other character was more dismissive of Dunk, I can see why the latter relented and agreed. Already on this episode, the dynamic between Dunk and Egg seemed spot on.

As for the rest of the characters, there was Plummer (Tom Vaughn-Lawlor). He thought of Dunk as a farmer but pointed him to Ser Manfred Dondarrion (Daniel Monks). The latter wouldn't vouch for him but that didn't seem to deter Dunk.

There's some better scenes with Dunk's interactions with Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford) but his scenes with Ser Lyonel Baratheon (Daniel Ings) were also a highlight in this opening episode. Lyonel seemed a little similar to a certain character who made it out of the main show alive. I'll let you guess which one.

- There was no title sequence for this episode and it's the longest one we'll get in this series. The rest will be shorter.

- We were also introduced to Ser Steffon Fosdoway (Edward Ashley) and his cousin Raymun (Shaun Thomas). Oh and we also saw Prince Daeron Targaryen (Henry Ashton) upon meeting Egg.

- I definitely could've done without seeing Dunk actually doing his business so graphically tbh. I'm guessing the flashbacks to his younger self and Ser Arlan will be a weekly thing.

- Dunk earned his nickname because of Tanselle and her friend. We also got a dragon puppet show.

- Peter Claffey is a Galway man. It's nice to see someone from my county in this franchise.

- Chronology: 209 AC. It's after the events of House Of The Dragon and before the events of Game Of Thrones.

The Hedge Knight made for a decent opening episode. It's definitely a lighter show compared to what's come before and the comedic scenes definitely feel broader as well. It's not as strong as either of the first episodes of the shows but there's potential here.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of The Lost Daughter (2021)

 

Written And Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal

Leda: "I left. When the oldest was seven and the youngest was five, I left. I abandoned them and I didn't see them for three years."

Nina: "What did it feel like without them?"

Leda: "It felt amazing."

Going into the Oscar season, I decided to go back and look at a movie that previously got an award contender much needed attention. That and the fact that the director has a certain movie coming out in March I cannot wait to see.

Yes, my first paragraph into this review was hinting at both Jessie Buckley and Maggie Gyllenhaal and they're quite a combination here too. Of course, there's also Olivia Colman at the heart of this drama. This might be one of Colman's best performances to date.

Taking on the role of translator and university professor, Leda Caruso, both Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley were able to delve into the character in both the present day and the past. Their performances perfectly compliment one another.

In the present day, Leda's on vacation in Greece and encountered a roughish New York/Greek family. In particular, Leda seemed to see something in young mother, Nina (Dakota Johnson). The latter was married to Toni (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) but was sleeping with Will (Paul Mescal) while also clearly going through a form of depression. Oh and Nina's daughter's doll went missing, which made up a huge part of this movie.

In flashbacks, the younger Leda struggled to be a mother to her own daughter's Bianca and Martha and often seemed exasperated by them. This led to conflict with her partner, Joe (Jack Farthing) and an affair with Professor Hardy (Peter Skarsgard). At one point, Leda even abandoned her children for three years. 

I did think this movie balanced the use of flashbacks and present day rather well with Leda given some moments of sympathy amidst her coldness at times. I would've liked a bit more time with Leda and Nina as the latter seemed fated to do something similar to the former. Oh and maybe a hatpin isn't such a good gift to give someone who you've stolen from. Just a thought.

- The movie's based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante.

- There's some nice supporting performances from Ed Harris and Dagmara Domińczyk as Lyle and Callie in this movie.

- Standout music: Bon Jovi's Living On A Prayer and Talking Heads People Like Us.

- Chronology: Present day Greece. Leda mentioned being 48 during Callie's birthday celebrations.

The Lost Daughter turned out to be a sobering debut for Maggie Gyllenhaal as a director. It's not an easy watch but it's anchored by a trio of terrific performances from Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley and Dakota Johnson. All three of them are given great material to work with.

Rating: 8 out of 10