Objects sees Adams at her sharpest

With all due respect to a certain New Zealand politician, SoHo’s latest dark drama is incontrovertible proof that there’s only one Amy Adams.

Based on the 2006 debut novel of Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, the eight-part Sharp Objects (1pm and 8.30pm, Mondays from July 9) sees the 43-year-old Italian-born American actress play the troubled Camille Preaker.

A reporter for the St Louis Chronicle, she reluctantly returns to her small-town roots when editor Frank Curry (Miguel Sandoval) assigns her to cover the murder of two young women in her former stomping ground.

It’s a story no one else is covering and, ‘‘people will give a s… because you give a s…’’, Curry argues. ‘‘I’m not going to win a Pulitzer out of Wind Gap, Missouri,’’ Camillle opines, before grumbling that she’s ‘‘under a lot of pressure’’.

‘‘Life is pressure – grow up,’’ he retorts, before sending her on her way.

Armed with a seemingly endless supply of cigarettes and her own travelling mini-bar, Camille makes the journey south. On arrival, she’s instantly reminded of why she always thought it was a ‘‘small town without charm, but one that does gossip like nobody else’’.

The local police chief (Matt Craven) is reluctant to share details because ‘‘if this gets out to St Louis, that’s what we’ll be known for’’, she gets off on the wrong foot with investigative detective Richard Willis (Chris Messina) and, even more importantly, upsets her socialite mother (Patricia Heaton).

‘‘I’m happy you are here, but don’t embarrass me,’’ she warns Camille, concerned that she has already begun asking, ‘‘horrible, morbid questions, stirring everyone up’’.

‘‘I’ll just pretend you are on a summer break,’’ she adds. However, when Camille is literally on the scene when the body of the second teen is discovered, it becomes a story she can’t avoid becoming a part of.

A collaboration between writer Marti Noxon (UnREAL, Code Black) and Big Little Lies director Jean-Marc Vallee,

Sharp Objects is a slow-burning psychological thriller that reminds one of the first True Detective series or the works of Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone). The worldweary residents of Wind Gap are superbly realised, with everyone a potential suspect.

But for all the efforts of a supporting cast that also includes Elizabeth Perkins (This is Us) and Madison Davenport (TV’s

From Dusk Till Dawn), this is very much a one-woman masterclass.

Building on the late-2016 double-bill of Arrival and

Nocturnal Animals, Adams delivers a stunning portrait of someone on a downward spiral, forced by proximity and circumstance to relive her own nightmares of the past, while drinking away her future.

This might very well be the one-time Junebug actress’ finest eight hours.