creepy new love drama
Neflix’s gripping new real-life crime drama will make you question everything
The explosion in popularity of true crime podcasts is inevitably leading to some of the best being adapted for the screen. One recent example is the Amazon original Homecoming, based on the podcast of the same name. And now here comes the eagerly-anticipated Dirty John on Netflix to mess with our ears
and eyes on Valentine’s Day. The Dirty John podcast snuck into listeners’ lives back in October 2017. Downloaded over 10million times during the first six weeks of release alone, it gripped us with the real-life story of a woman who seriously chose the wrong guy to date. This cautionary tale proved so compelling that we didn’t even mind that narrator Christopher Goffard, the LA Times journo who wrote the podcast, sounded like a dull college professor.
DIRTY DATING
Debra Newell, a 59-year-old interior designer in Southern California with four divorces behind her, met John Meehan on a dating site for the over-50s. This handsome, divorced anaesthesiologist instantly seemed like a cut above the standard men Debra had met online, despite his strange behavioural traits. If you were being uncharitable, you might say some of these idiosyncrasies were red flags, but we’re not here to judge. For their first date, Meehan wore a T-shirt and shorts, despite the fact they were heading to a swish restaurant. When they ended up at Debra’s flat that night, he launched himself onto her bed, uninvited, and said, “This feels incredible.” He then turned up to other meals wearing faded medical scrubs, told her he loved her on the third date, and called himself “the best thing that will ever happen to you”. Unfortunately, Debra believed him, and found herself falling in love with him – and within weeks, they were living together, with marriage on the cards, too.
Straight off, Debra’s two teen daughters didn’t take to Meehan, but we won’t spoil how it all panned out, in case you haven’t finished the podcast. So, how will the whole thing translate to Netflix?
BRAVO TO BANA
Last November, the TV version of Dirty John had its US premiere on the Bravo channel. This eight-part series met with a generally positive
reception, partly because it strikes the right balance between dramatising what happened and lapsing into clichéd psychological horror. The key casting is Eric Bana as Meehan, whose understated performance sets the tone for everything else. If Meehan had come across as a drooling maniac right from the start, along the lines of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, then we would never be able to understand why Debra (the excellent Connie Britton from American Horror Story) didn’t run a mile after that first date. As it stands, though, the story feels uncomfortably relatable because we can imagine being drawn into the man’s sociopathic web.
Debra’s daughters Veronica and Terra are played by two great actresses, in the shape of Juno Temple (The Dark Knight Rises) and the award-winning Julia Garner, so awesome in Ozark on Netflix. As much as we feel for Debra’s plight, it’s her daughters who become our heroes, because they seem to be the only ones who understand that Meehan has issues out the wazoo. There’s one chilling scene in episode one, when Meehan coldly tells Terra that she has arrived at his and Debra’s new seafront home too early, which really shows us the man behind the mask. Brrr.
So, if you fancy watching something on V Day that will make your own relationship feel normal, or remind you why singledom rocks, we can fully recommend a hot date with Dirty John.