Source : the age
This week’s picks include Mia Wasikowska’s delightfully disorienting murder mystery, a lovely rom-com starring JLo and Brett Goldstein, an extra helping of Matthew Rhys and more romance with Voicemails for Isabelle.
The Killings at Parrish Station ★★★★ (Stan*)
The Killings at Parrish Station is impeccable, ambitious Australian television – a six-part series with an unnerving, cosmic take on the classic outback mystery. Propelled by a razor-sharp script filled with tension, terror, humour and a dash of existential pondering (think Midnight Mass or True Detective, with fewer philosophical monologues), the series follows Detective Georgia Cooke, a woman haunted for 34 years by an unsolved massacre in the desert.
Led by Mia Wasikowska and Heather Mitchell as younger and older versions of Cooke, the series jumps between two timelines, beginning with the 1987 massacre of four scientists at Parrish Station, an isolated research post in the Australian desert (unnamed, but filmed in Broken Hill).
The murders are cruel and ritualistic, with all but one of the teeth removed from a victim; another’s organs were removed while still alive, while several stone cairns are found nearby.
It’s a few days past Christmas when Cooke (Wasikowska) and her partner Michael Thorne (Xavier Samuel) arrive via helicopter, their white collared shirts immediately sticking to them in the heat. “How does anyone survive out here?” asks Thorne. “You don’t,” replies Cooke.
But they aren’t the grizzled duo swapping quips for long, and are soon at odds as Cooke explores leads that point towards a mysterious 15th-century book, while Thorne’s shadowy past sends him down a different path.
Fast-forward to 2024, and we meet Cooke (Mitchell) again, but this time in an institution, where she has lived ever since the investigation’s traumatising end. She is released by her former mentee (Doris Youane) to investigate copycat killings that have begun to surface.
Before we meet Mitchell-as-Cooke, however, Parrish Station enters the 21st century with a live true-crime podcast, cutting between timelines from a fresh outback crime scene to a city crowd lapping up lines such as: “That’s not where teeth medically go!”
These scenes could put many viewers offside, but they work, immediately deflating all tension. If anything, they set up how delightfully disorienting Parrish Station makes its time jumps, which are immediately visually recognisable but often tonally isolating.
A brilliant first show from TV writer Ben Jenkins (The Chaser; SBS’s The Feed), Parrish Station’s well-drawn world is brought to life by a talented crew – including composer Michael Yezerski, whose ominous score makes radio fuzz a sign of horror – and a stacked cast. It’s particularly remarkable to have Wasikowska and Mitchell, two greats at showing rage behind a poised surface, play Cooke – a character who can’t let injustice go, even as she knows the pursuit will hurt her most of all.
Why four stars, not five? Like most mysteries, not all its answers can match the eerie magnitude of its questions. Such is life. From June 24.
Office Romance ★★★ (Netflix)
For all that’s off about the 2020s, at least Jennifer Lopez has returned to cotton-candy rom-coms – a genre in which her star power fuels the love-at-first-sight fantasy, even in a title as unglamorous as Office Romance.
Here, Lopez plays Jackie, a work-obsessed airline CEO in New Jersey, who has developed a hardline persona to impress an all-male board. New company lawyer Daniel (Brett Goldstein) is brilliant in court, but reduced to a bumbling Brit by Jackie’s radiance. Recognising his brilliant mind, she falls for Daniel, too – but a relationship could see them both lose their jobs, with Jackie’s enemies ready to strike.
Co-written by Goldstein with Ted Lasso’s Joe Kelly, Office Romance is billed as raunchy, but it’s more lewd than sexually explicit, packed with bawdy genitalia jokes and C-bombs, riffing on how Brits use the word differently. These jokes can claw at Office Romance’s romantic bubble a little, as can the detailed intricacies of intra-airline politics. Even if it doesn’t always work, it’s playful enough to forgive a bad joke or clunky line.
Office Romance coasts off Lopez’s charm to be weird elsewhere. Take scene-stealer Betty Gilpin (Glow), who plays Jackie’s ultra-protective, heavily pregnant deputy with a deranged intensity and venom directed at Daniel that reminds us that it’s not that serious. It’s just a little office fling.
The Welcome Table ★★ (HBO Max)
Oscar-nominated documentarian Josh Fox’s latest focuses on climate refugees, weaving stories of those displaced by Brazil’s landslides, Kenya’s droughts and the 2022 floods in Lismore, and more. Unapologetically political, it has a clear message: as the world faces unprecedented levels of migration, compassion must lead the way. While I agree, The Welcome Table is frustratingly overworked. With powerful interviews, it doesn’t need lyrical narration, musical performances or a clunky framing device – the titular Table made literal as a meeting site for interview subjects in New Orleans, evidently cathartic but repetitive for viewers.
The Americans ★★★★★ (SBS On Demand)
With water-cooler hit Widow’s Bay wrapped up, it’s the perfect time to dive into lead actor Matthew Rhys’s back catalogue – starting with his Emmy-winning turn as an undercover Soviet spy. Originally airing for six seasons in the 2010s, The Americans stars Rhys opposite his real-life wife Keri Russell as two KGB intelligence officers posing as an American couple, living outside Washington DC in the 1980s. The period detailing, political tensions and high-adrenaline chases are excellent, but The Americans’ true hook is its clever, morally complex examination of US life.
Voicemails for Isabelle ★★★ (Netflix)
Zoey Deutch elevates this cheesy Hallmark-esque rom-com by adding a surprisingly emotional undercurrent. She plays Jill, a prep-chef who leaves voicemails to her recently passed sister about her messy work and love life. When the number’s reassigned to slightly slimy Wes (Nick Robinson), he’s smitten and soon woos Jill without mentioning the voicemails. No surprise where this is going, but it gets there with convincing chemistry and solid jokes. Deutch carries Jill’s grief constantly and quietly, adding a weight to what would otherwise be a pure plot device.
Fwends ★★ (Stan)
Inspired by HBO’s Girls, Australian Sophie Somerville’s debut feature focuses on two lost twenty-somethings: Sydney lawyer Em (Emmanuelle Mattana) visiting old friend Jessie (Melissa Gan) in Melbourne. A beautifully shot walk-and-talk through Melbourne, Fwends is best when diving into how the duo have drifted apart. But these resonant moments are rare, as the largely improvised dialogue, while painfully realistic and charming at times, is more often closer to overhearing cringe conversations on a tram. Still, it’s clear Fwends’ cast and crew have a lot of talent and promise.
*Stan is owned by Nine, publisher of this masthead.
