Bingeworthy true-crime drama
Melanie Lynskey delivers another terrific turn in this provocative tale, writes James Croot
Melanie Lynskey brilliantly essays another disaffected, troubled housewife and mother in the five-part, true-crime drama Candy (now streaming on Disney+).
Sporting a Pauline Parkeresque haircut, her Betty Gore has an air of quiet despair similar to Yellowjackets’ Shauna Sadecki, as she struggles to cope with the demands of her baby.
As well as having a reputation for being a stern teacher among the parents and children of Wylie, Texas, the church wives have also colloquially dubbed her ‘‘St Betty of Perpetual Distress’’.
Never a fan of her husband Allan’s (Pablo Schreiber) work taking him away from her, Betty is particularly fretful of this weekend trip to fix 3M’s phone system because she’s convinced she’s in the family way once more.
‘‘I’m just so scared. If I’m pregnant again, there goes teaching next semester and our vacation is going to be ruined.’’
Assuring her that she’s just torturing herself for no good reason, Allan tries to distract her by promising that they’ll practise their French for the trip upon his return.
Across town, it’s all go in the Montgomery household. The kids have their last day of Vacation Bible School and excitement is building for a proposed trip to the movies to see the latest Star Wars movie.
Not wanting their young guest Christina Gore (Antonella Rose) to feel left out, Montgomery matriarch Candy (Jessica Biel) assures her she’ll talk to her mother about staying another night, promising to collect Christina’s bathing suit, so she can attend her scheduled swimming lesson as well.
However, Candy’s friends are surprised when a run of morning errands results in her absence from the school’s pageant. Even more shocking, she arrives more than a little flustered and wearing trainers, instead of her trademark beaten up shower shoes.
That evening, while an increasingly queasy Candy sits through The Empire Strikes Back, Allan becomes concerned that the normally reliable Betty isn’t answering the phone.
From its Emmy-nominated Saul Bass-esque opening title sequence to the thematically pitch-perfect period music (David Soul’s Don’t Give Up On Us Baby), this evocative, provocative circa 1980-set tale quickly becomes immersive thanks to the fabulous production design, cleverly constructed narrative and two terrific performances from Lynskey and Biel.
The latter is virtually unrecognisable with her Dorothy Michaels-like curls and face-framing glasses, but the more we spend time with Candy the more compelling, complicated and seemingly conniving she becomes.
Cracks begin to appear in her seemingly perfect marriage, her increasing sexual frustration demonstrated magnificently – and hilariously – by her attempts for some bath-time escapism among a typical evening’s chaos and her failed attempts to interest husband Pat (Timothy Simons) by reading some of her favourite erotic fiction aloud (‘‘I liked the rhymes,’’ is his only response).
Already dramatised once in 1990 TV movie A Killing in a Small Town (featuring Barbara Hershey as Candy) and set to be the subject of an HBO series starring Elizabeth Olsen and Lily Rabe, it’s easy to see the televisual attraction of this tale, subtitled A Death in Texas.
This terrific, engrossing and truly bingeworthy version though will take some beating.
Candy is now available to stream on Disney+.