This month’s shows are so good that I genuinely struggled to pick a frontrunner.
But, as is often the case with me, unhinged won out.
Let me tell you about …
- Ren Faire, a look into the batshit world of US renaissance fairs
- Jake Gyllenhaal’s latest remake, the legal thriller Presumed Innocent
- The new gay Dakota Johnson film, Am I OK?
- Otto by Otto, the poignant documentary on Australian acting great Barry Otto
- Austin, a new drama about a neurodivergent man reconnecting with his dirtbag father
Ren Faire — Binge
At first glance, Ren Faire is an artfully told, three-part HBO docuseries about the renaissance fair subculture in Texas — a niche interest, sure, but not a weird one.
That first impression is completely wrong. Ren Faire is the new Tiger King, meets Succession.
In this oversaturated, hazy world that more closely resembles Euphoria than real life, director Lance Oppenheim introduces us to the very real George Coulam, the anti-government, wellness and sex-obsessed founder of the Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF). This annual fair brings 30,000 “lords and ladies of the realm” (read: visitors) a day to the incorporated town of Todd Mission, where capitalism and nepotism run rampant.
There are more than a few whispers about the lonely 85-year-old’s grasp on reality, but his devout followers (who refer to Coulam as “the king”) insist he’s just “thinking on a level [we] can’t comprehend”.
However, Coulam’s heart no longer lies in the (hilariously inaccurate) 16th-century world he created decades ago. The “level” he thinks on is now concerned with striving towards maintaining an erection until he dies, and finding a “nice thin lady between 30 and 50 years old”, using a sugar daddy profile one of his staffers runs for him.
So, who will replace him as monarch? Jeff Baldwin, the incredibly desperate Kendall Roy-coded 43-year-old thespian who’s been working for the festival since he was 16? Or Louie Migliaccio, the ruthless trust fund baby (a Shiv/Roman composite?) who likely has the money to buy Coulam out but has only been involved with the event for a decade … and likely won’t preserve its integrity?
You won’t be able to guess, and the unpredictability of it all is glorious.
For fans of: Tiger King, Succession, Gunther’s Millions
Presumed innocent — Apple TV+
Regular readers of this column will know we love Jake Gyllenhaal here. So we (alright, I) have predictably been eagerly anticipating the star’s latest project, Presumed Innocent (another direct-to-streaming remake mere months after the runaway success of Roadhouse, for those playing along at home).
The legal thriller mini-series, based on the 1987 novel of the same name by Scott Turow, stars Gyllenhaal as Rusty Sabich, a Chicago county prosecutor assigned to find and convict the killer of his colleague Carolyn Polhemus’s (Renate Reinsve), amid the district attorney’s re-election campaign.
But Rusty is more than just a dedicated family man consumed by the need to bring his fellow prosecutor’s killer to justice in America’s fundamentally rotted system and also get his boss re-elected. He has a secret that will not only see the full force of the judicial system directed at him — but threaten the safety of his family, his career and his freedom.
In Presumed Innocent, Gyllenhaal — and even more so Ruth Negga, who plays Rusty’s wife Barbara — deliver faultless, frequently wrenching performances. Their interracial relationship and mixed-race children add an important, well-handled dimension to this decades-old story that was much whiter in earlier tellings.
That said, you’ll probably enjoy this adaptation most if you haven’t read the book or seen the 1990 movie starring Harrison Ford, because it’s the unpredictable twists and turns that make this limited series a must-watch.
For fans of: Unbelievable, Under the Banner of Heaven, Anatomy of a Scandal, Bodyguard
Am I OK? — Binge
Try as she might to convince us she’s capable of playing the Marvel superhero, Dakota Johnson’s particular brand of endearingly awkward white girl comedy is made for films like these.
In Am I OK? she plays Lucy, a 32-year-old artist working a dead-end job as a day spa receptionist in LA who is, for some reason, hesitant to take the next step with the perfectly fine straight guy she frequently plies with beer while he does odd jobs around her house. She gets little pleasure from dating or having sex with men, but often finds herself absent-mindedly drawing delicate portraits of women …
Lucy’s coping mechanism is to live in denial until her best friend/crutch Jane (Sonoya Mizuno) accepts a promotion that requires her to move to London, and Lucy drunkenly reveals she thinks she might be gay.
Am I OK? is partly a story about comfort zones and pursuing what makes us happy regardless of whether we begin to do so “too late”. But, most of all, it’s a story about friendship and continuing to show up, albeit imperfectly.
Featuring rap yoga gags, a gay bar called The Womb and a soundtrack featuring Kim Petras and Arlo Parks, this belated coming-of-age dramedy is achingly relatable, and just the right amount of awkward-funny.
For fans of: Anything from the Dakota Johnson awkward white girl oeuvre — AKA How to be Single, Persuasion, and 50 Shades of Grey at a stretch. Outside of that, Saltburn.
Otto by Otto — Stan
Gracie Otto started making the documentary Otto by Otto about her legendary actor father Barry Otto with the intention of depicting his journey to restage a one-man play he first performed in 1974.
She envisioned the film as a look at the very high highs and very low lows of his decades-long career, and his deep and rich connection to the theatre and the screen. She hoped it would recast the delightful eccentricity he is so deeply known for, consider his experience of fatherhood, marriage, his outlook on life — and offer an endearing portrait of his two beloved cats.
But as the Australian stage and film great began preparing to once more portray Monk O’Neill in Jack Hibberd’s A Stretch of the Imagination, aged in his 70s, one thing became gradually clear: his body couldn’t do it.
Otto by Otto still touches on all the things Gracie first set out to express. But the reality of Barry’s declining health turned the film into an attempt to capture as much about her father as possible before it disappears.
It’s hard to imagine this searingly honest portrait of Barry Otto depicted by anyone other than a member of his family. That said, there are moments and revelations that made it into the film as a result of the documentarian’s family ties to her subject that feel questionable to present to the world.
If you have any experience with a loved one experiencing cognitive decline, this may be triggering and present ethical concerns for you. But ultimately, it’s still a beautiful, if melancholy, piece to watch.
For fans of: Strictly Ballroom, Bliss, Cosi, The More Things Change …
Austin — ABC iview
Austin Hogan (Michael Theo, of Love on the Spectrum renown) is a 20-something neurodivergent forklift driver who just wants to meet his dad — the cynical, rich and best-selling British children’s book author Julian Hartswood (Ben Miller).
The timing couldn’t be worse for Julian, whom Austin approaches in the midst of his Australian book tour, hours after he unwittingly retweeted a neo-Nazi’s take on free speech that resulted in his prompt cancellation. With his career in freefall and his relationship with wife and illustrator Ingrid (Sally Phillips) on rocky terrain, he denies ever meeting Austin’s mother and fobs him off.
But then the slimy PR team tasked with doing damage control for Julian’s career suggests that a public relationship with the autistic son he never knew existed could rehabilitate his image. Suddenly, Austin’s back in.
While Justin sets out to reconnect with Austin for all the wrong reasons — and definitely doesn’t deserve the patience or love of his long-lost son — he sticks to it for the right ones.
This joint ABC iview-ITV Studios series is an example of an international co-production done right. Household (character actors) Miller and Phillips are deliciously off-putting as the pompous married couple who are extremely comfortable with their privileged North London lives and have no idea how to deal with conflict. And then there’s Theo, whose outward calm as Austin is everything, and who is so good playing a dramatic lead it’s hard to believe this is his acting debut.
For fans of: Love on the Spectrum (for Michael), Dinosaur
Honourable new-to-streaming mentions:
- Fantasmas — Binge: A new surrealist comedy series from SNL alum Julio Torres that centres on a search for a lost golden oyster earring in New York City, and boasts an all-star cast including Ziwe, Emma Stone, Steve Buscemi and Julia Fox
- Queenie — Disney+: The bestselling 2019 novel by Candice Carty-Williams has been given the TV treatment
- Becoming Karl Lagerfeld — Disney+: A dramatised telling of the infamous late fashion designer’s rise through the world of haute couture in 1970s Paris
- Bridgerton season three, part two — Netflix: Finally, the wait is over and we can find out whether Lady Whistledown, AKA Penelope Featherington, gets her happily ever after
- House of the Dragon season two — Binge: Another “finally!” moment. The Game of Thrones spin-off series is back for its second season, helmed by Emma D’Arcy of “negroni sbagliato with prosecco in it” fame
- The Acolyte — Disney+: A new story from the Star Wars universe, set 100 years before Episode I and starring Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae
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