Offensively bad writing.
The TV show 'Clarice' skillfully undoes everything that made 'The Silence of the Lambs' a classic book and movie. To say you can't compare Clarice (TV) to the aforementioned film is ridiculous, both properties are based on the same foundation. If Clarice is based on the book then why not re-imagine the Jame Gumb/Buffalo Bill scenes, why lift them directly from the movie?Rather then going at length about all that makes this show poor I will simply use one example.
Catherine Martin, daughter of Ruth Martin, who is eventually saved from the pit by Clarice, is one character whose portrayal is particularly egregious. Before Clarice arrived at Bill's house, Catherine did her best to give herself a fighting chance. She created the trap with the bone that she used to lure and capture Precious, Bill's dog. In doing so she now had some control over Bill, as she had is dog. Where as Bill's interactions with Catherine to that point were mostly controlled with little emotion or connection, once Catherine had Precious, Bill loses emotional control. What she did took strength and cunning and willingness to do all she could to stay alive.
Catherine Martin in 'Clarice' is represented as a recluse, who is tormented and incapable of going back into the world, terrified and essentially weak. So all the strength portrayed in the theatrical version of Catherine is gone. And just to repeat, this TV show recreates the exact same shots from the film version, one can not say this is a re-imagining, this is a direct lift from the movie. Catherine's determination to fight, to survive that has all somehow evaporated for the TV show.
The main character of Clarice I wont touch, I would be typing all day. But one interesting note, I remember one character in 'The Silence of the Lambs' being a Bully and that was Dr. Chilton and even then he was more creepy then a bully. The Clarice TV show has male bullies hanging off of every corner, waiting to be mean to poor ol Clarice. Following this approach all the male characters will just be monsters like the killers with the odd empathetic male character thrown in. One of the things that made 'The Silence of the Lambs' so good, the people (men and women) were just people, they were ordinary, not mean not over loving just ordinary, which made the killers so extra ordinary and terrifying. The decency of ordinary people working in a world filled with so much evil and cruelty, that is what made it work. Clarice feels like a mean world with mean people dealing with meaner people and it makes it so dull and unoriginal.
I got an idea, why couldn't you take the best parts of Mindhunter and meld them with Clarice Starling? Why take NCIS or CSI, dull hackneyed show formats that are about as imaginative as plain bread.
Clarice is a missed opportunity to continue a brilliant characters journey in a terrifying world.
score 1/10
IrishCorso39 13 February 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6593018/14767
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