Carnival Row
This is well-trodden genre
territory, presenting fantastical
creatures as persecuted outcasts
(see: all things X-Men), and Carnival
Row—created by René Echevarria
(The 4400) and Travis Beacham
(Pacific Rim)—generally sticks
to the usual plot devices. Philo is
a brooding hero with a Big Secret,
one that involves his former fae
lover Vignette (Delevingne). She,
meanwhile, is shocked to discover
he didn’t die in the war.
Amid the pastiche and the
occasionally banal writing are some
charming stories. My favorite
involves the snooty, insolvent
Imogen Spurnrose (Tazmin Mer-
chant), who reluctantly falls for
the wealthy “puck” (a goat-man
hybrid) next door; it’s like Pride
and Prejudice and Satyrs. And
Game of Thrones’ Indira Varma has
a ball as Piety Breakspear (these
character names!), the conniving
wife to a critch-friendly politician
(Jared Harris).
At times the mythology can feel
needlessly complex, but there is
something endearing about Carni-
val’s earnest, irony-free story telling.
Oddly, this splashy production built
around a movie star and a former
model feels like an underdog, a
Cones of Dunshire-style labor of
love on a Jack Ryan budget. B–
IF A GROUP OF HARDCORE GENRE
fans wrote a TV show, and then
somebody’s rich Uncle Jeff (Bezos)
Venmo’d them several million dollars
to produce it, the result might be
Carnival Row. Amazon’s fantasy-
thriller (starring Orlando Bloom and
Cara Delevingne as unlikely lovers)
is a knotty, nerdy, and sincere para-
ble about xenophobia, with plenty
of interspecies sex to satisfy viewers.
As we learn from a text-on-screen
preamble, the “fae” (a.k.a. fairy
people) spent years defending their
homeland from humans, who
sought to control it. Now the war is
over, and fae refugees—fleeing the
brutal persecution of a group called
the Pact—are pouring into the
Burgue, a sooty city that looks a lot
like Victorian London, but with
more goat people. A vocal political
movement decries the influx of
newcomers, and tensions are raised
further by a series of attacks on
“critch” (a slur for nonhuman folk).
It’s up to Inspector Rycroft “Philo”
Philostrate (Bloom) to find the mas-
termind before he strikes again.
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REVIEW BY Kristen Baldwin
@KristenGBaldwin
↓ Carnies: Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne
JAN THIJS/AMAZON
“COMPLETELY
ADDICTIVE.”
—SARA SHEPARD,
#1 New York Times
bestselling author of Pretty Little Liars
and The Perfectionists
Glamorous.
Powerful.
ROYAL.
Art © 2019 by Carolina Melis
Learn more at
GETUNDERLINED.COM
@GETUNDERLINED
