The Long Weekend: ‘Baby Reindeer’
Safe is to say anybody would fear having a stalker in today's technology and social media era. It's so easy for someone to find out where you are with location services on your phone or some of these applications. But when you combine a day when you try to do an act of kindness when you know your life is racing to the bottom with a mentally ill person, you get Netflix's new limited series Baby Reindeer.
Donny (Richard Gadd), a struggling prop comic, works a dead-end job as a bartender when Martha (Jessica Gunning) comes into the bar one day distraught with no money. Donny politely gives Martha a cup of tea on the house. Martha then begins to stalk Donny aggressively, which forces him to deal with his traumatic past.
It's incredible what an uneasy feeling the camera can create when it is set on a character for a few seconds too long before they begin to speak. In the shots before the audience witnesses Martha's breaking point, we see her upright posture sitting by the bar, patiently waiting for her calculated social cue to initiate a conversation with her new subject, Donny. Even the intro to each episode subsequently includes the show's title with each of Martha's misprinted emails.
Donny's troubled past dealing with sexual abuse from males stems from an experience with a writer he idolized named Darrien (Tom Goodman-Hill), who promised him everything but gave him nothing. Taking Donny into his low-lit apartment filled with too much red silk, Darrien grooms Donny, feeding him copious amounts of drugs and feeding him nothing but compliments. Viewers know what's coming and question Donny's decision-making, knowing why he keeps falling for the manipulative trap everyone has experienced in one way, either in their professional or personal lives.
What makes Baby Reindeer so good is its minimal number of characters throughout each episode, leaving no scene to be wasted, leaving more room for rich dialogue and moving the story along steadily. The story is also easy to follow because it is told through the eyes of Donny, and viewers get a better understanding of him and are given the chance to truly understand him through his intensive internal monologue.
Even after meeting Donny in the first episode, it's clear he is emotionally wrecked. Still, this feeling cannot be conveyed on the screen without being based on the real-life experience of the show's writer and creator, Richard Gadd.
Baby Reindeer might hit close to home for any aspiring stand-up comedian or anybody beginning in the entertainment industry who thinks making a beeline to Hollywood, letting go of self-respect and dignity is the only way to make it to the top. But don't get it twisted; dreams can still come true, all while you can have health insurance and not end up in a washed-up writer's, overly expensive apartment doing drugs until 5AM.
The Netflix show is a comedy thriller that delivers bits of dark humor throughout but still makes viewers uncomfortable in their seats. And once you think the show is ending, we'll see a recovered Donny who goes on to become successful and let go of his trauma - those expectations will not be met. Because Donny has still not become a better person but dives further into self-pity and darkness, believing the terrible situations he puts on himself will help his stand-up material, not realizing this is the wrong approach to take to any line of work that involves producing content from within.
Baby Reindeer is now streaming on Netflix.
Rating: 10/10
