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Now this is how to do a mystery/thriller: start out with fantastic actors, give them brilliant dialogue and watch as what starts out as a generic amnesia story turns into so much more.
River, Broadchurch, Unforgotten ... The list of really excellent TV thrillers in English is quite short. But with The Break (La Trêve) and now this, Belgium is starting to look like a real contender when it comes to producing truly mesmerising shows.
A woman suffers a car accident and, after somehow starting a fire in her kitchen, has to move in temporarily to her grandparents house in the country, accompanied by her husband and reluctatnt 7-year-old daughter. But there's a darkness in the house and her at best flickering memory struggles to piece things together and, more importantly, to hold on to those fragmentary impressions. In the process, the makers of Tabula Rasa plunder some of the very best scene's of Kubrik's The Shining (tribute or theft?) and sample a whole range of classic mystery movies (including The Sixth Sense and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), but somehow you forgive them because, like great artists, their 'borrowings' are both so audacious and perfectly handled. And just when you think you know where the plot is going, it takes a sudden, fascinating detour.
Tabula Rasa is highly recommended (but a bit dark for younger/more sensitive viewers), with a fantastic leading performance and numerous moments of subtle brilliance and genuine surprise. Watch it.
score 9/10
stairways 17 March 2019
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4728532/ |
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9-10-2020 22:44:13