THE NEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 16, 2020 75
a dick,” Jonathan’s public defender tells
Grace, suggesting that, although his cli-
ent might be bad, he is no killer.
Could Jonathan be guilty? He is pre-
sented in the pilot episode not as a psy-
chopath, or even as a dick, but as an ir-
resistibly crinkly-eyed, slightly roguish
man who cajoles Grace into sex by say-
ing things like “Make an Englishman
happy.” He is, in other words, a Hugh
Grant character. But his affair and his
potentially murderous impulses are rem-
iniscent of one Grant character in par-
ticular—the charming, conspiring pol-
itician Jeremy Thorpe in 2018’s “A Very
English Scandal.”
I
t may feel as if you’ve seen a lot of
these characters—and plot points,
and framing devices—recently. “The
Undoing,” though conceived as a who-
dunnit, is much less interested in Elena
and her killer than it is in Grace’s in-
ternal landscape. The show is the latest
in a long tradition devoted to examin-
ing the shadowy psychic crevices of
high-strung, upper-class white women,
calling back to the Lifetime movie, and
to steamy eighties and nineties dramas
such as “Basic Instinct,” “The Hand
That Rocks the Cradle,” and “Fatal At-
traction.” (A friend who works as a de-
velopment executive told me that such
content is known in industry parlance
as “Adrian Lyne and wine,” after the di-
rector of the last movie.)
Some of the most recent TV efforts,
glossy things starring A-list actresses,
include the Amy Adams-led “Sharp Ob-
jects” (which, like “The Undoing,” has
a gruesome act of violence at its core)
and the Naomi Watts vehicle “Gypsy”
(which features a therapist protagonist).
Earlier this year came “Little Fires Ev-
erywhere,” starring Reese Witherspoon,
three years after the aforementioned “Big
Little Lies,” which, as in a game of pres-
tige-TV musical chairs, stars not only
Witherspoon but Kidman as well. All
of these shows evince an ongoing nego-
tiation between the sociopolitical and
the operatically psychological. But “Lit-
tle Fires Everywhere”—a show in which
the life of a wealthy white mom becomes
intertwined with that of a working-class
artist of color—at least makes an at-
tempt to contend with some of the ques-
tions of race and class that it raises. In
“The Undoing,” such questions are made
irrelevant by the decision to kill Elena
off almost immediately. One is left won-
dering why the show bothered to intro-
duce her at all.
David E. Kelley’s most notable early
success was that landmark of post-
feminism “Ally McBeal,” the late-nine-
ties network dramedy that focussed on
the spectacle of a woman dithering be-
tween mating and career within the
stage set of the modern workplace. In
comparison, Grace, even though she is
an accomplished therapist, seems largely
post-work. Part of the pleasure of shows
like “The Undoing” is their characters’
relative financial freedom, which allows
them the time to do things such as plan
a fund-raiser or, perhaps, a murder.
Dressed in jewel-toned velvets, with
her long auburn ringlets streaming down
her back, Grace has the look of a Pre-
Raphaelite heroine, wandering the city
streets in a daze, her cape-like coat flap-
ping, the muddled, soft-focus haze of
the show’s cinematography reflecting
her tortured mental state. In a cliff-
hanger in the show’s third episode, the
hunky detective investigating Elena’s
murder (Édgar Ramírez) provides evi-
dence that Grace might be involved in
the crime—a possibility that appears to
come as a surprise to Grace herself, and
that hints at the limits of the therapist’s
self-knowledge. This mystery, however,
stretches wearyingly along the show’s
course, turning from a suspenseful de-
vice to something that suggests Grace’s
characterological thinness.
Who is this woman? Kidman’s char-
acter in “Big Little Lies,” Celeste, was
also an enigma, but the actress played
the role with such restraint that Ce-
leste’s opacity felt deliberate. As Grace,
Kidman seems, at times, unsure of her
own character’s intentions, shifting from
blithe merriment to imperious boss-
lady outbursts to turned-up-to-eleven
distress. Beset by hazy visions of events
that she might or might not have actu-
ally seen—Elena and Jonathan making
passionate love, Jonathan joshingly car-
ing for one of his young cancer patients,
Elena attacked with a hammer—Grace’s
mind seems less a site of internal conflict
than a repository of televisual clichés.
In these moments, the camera closes in
tightly on Kidman’s lovely eyes, as if the
answer can be found in their cloudy
depths. It cannot.
Featuring George Booth’s
irascible cats and dogs,
the collapsible New Yorker
umbrella is the perfect
companion for a rainy day.
It’s Raining
Cats and Dogs
To order, please visit
newyorkerstore.com
OR CALL 888.646.6466
JOHN- CHRISTIAN.COM
Crafted from Gold and Platinum
Your Anniversary
Immortalized
in Roman Numerals
3-Day Rush Available!
European Beret $20
100% Wool • One Size Fits All
Black, Navy, Brown, Red, Camel, Grey
Check or Credit Card w/Exp. Date.
Add $4 shipping plus $1 each additional
http://www.johnhelmer.com
John Helmer • Est. 1921 • (503) 223-4976
969 S.W. Broadway, Dept. N110 • Portland, OR 97205
golightlycashmere.com¥(575) 776-8287
Well-Made in the U S A
A Quality Classic
Many More Styles, Colors & Sizes
TO FIND OUT MORE, CONTACT
JILLIAN GENET | 305.520.5159
[email protected]
WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
Small space has big rewards.
ADVERTISEMENT
