The Crowded Room (2023)
Apple TV plus originals have a track record of being pretty outstanding for the most part. A series starring Tom Holland is dropped in 2023 called The Crowded Room. I was recommended the film by a friend of mine and I am down by just the first three episodes.
In Manhattan in the summer of 1979, a young man is arrested for a shocking crime and an unlikely investigator must solve the mystery behind it before the true criminal strikes again. In addition to Tom Holland, the stars Amanda Seyfried, Sasha Lane, Will Chase and Lior Raz.
Up until the end of episode three, I really had no idea where this was headed and even what remotely was going on. Now, when I say that, though, I don't mean that the story is confusing or poorly told. It's actually very captivating and wonderfully crafted.
The cinematography is very cinematic, which is pretty typical of Apple originals. And then the costume and set designs, they transport us back to the late 70s perfectly. But for the story, Tom Holland is being interviewed by Amanda Seyfried.
And as she asks questions, we watch the events play out in flashbacks. Now, this does an excellent job of establishing the characters, but also building up suspense to a ridiculous degree.
I was so enthralled in what was going on, but yet doing my best to solve a mystery that I didn't even know about. And because these episodes are about an hour each, this is a great start to the series. And even though the characters, their motives and even the trajectory of the story is an enigma, we're provided with so much character development that they feel known to us and can begin to form some connections with them.
There are some side characters that help to build out our main character's story, and they also add both complications and humor, but at different times.
Talking about Holland, he's awesome in this. I really appreciate that he's very different than his MCU persona. And even though he plays a high schooler or a dude in his early 20s in both, the characterizations of each are wildly different. And I found him to be endearing and intriguing. He's mousy, shy, a bit of a stutterer and bumbler, and he's incredibly downtrodden and defeated by life. And then everything about his presentation displays all of that.
And then we have Amanda Seyfried. She's professional, clean cut, but also sympathetic and compassionate. And there's a friendliness and concern that she displays with Holland, making her come across as an ally, even if she may not be one.
I first remember seeing Sasha Lane in the Amazon remake of Utopia. And regardless of what you think of that show, she's wonderful here. She's fragile and tough all at once. And she's mostly a mystery for us because she's very closed off in private. But when she does open up, that's when drama begins to build for her story and sets the narrative off on its path in exciting ways.
She and Holland, they also have great chemistry. I mean, it's fairly dysfunctional, but they work well together. And I enjoyed their interactions and the power dynamics that are displayed within that relationship.
Will Chase plays Holland's stepdad. And through costuming and makeup, he looks older than he is in real life. And it believably works to create a character that is easy to feel passionately emotional about.
Finally, Liora Raz is in this, and I've really enjoyed all of his performances that I've seen him in, especially Fauda. But in the crowded room, he's the biggest wild card so far in the story. We know next to nothing about him other than he's tough, fair and just, but also very rigid in his stances.
He has a compassionate side to him, at least outwardly. But by the end of the episodes, we still don't know what his true involvement in the story is going to be. And I like that mystery.
The pacing for this is done well. It's got the patience of a drama, but also knows when to insert action and suspense in order to ramp up urgency and excitement. And I got to say, the tension, it is palpable as each moment passes because we're learning more in small increments, but then are also experiencing the complications of Holland's character retelling the story.
Because he's been arrested for a crime, at the moment, we don't know if he's actually telling the truth or if this is a whole Kaiser-Soze twist.
So overall, these first three episodes of The Crowded Room are perplexing and thrilling. The storytelling is patient as it draws us in with dynamic and complex characters and twists that seem to compound on each other, building a suspenseful narrative that's sure to have many more surprises up its sleeve. There's sex, some brief nudity, a ton of profanity, and a lot of violence.
Posted using CineTV