In the great Chris wars of our time, as Hemsworth, Evans, Pratt, and Pine watch in politely-stifled alarm as the internet relitigates which of them is the “best” every other month in perpetuity, one false move can send a man tumbling down the ranks. One minute, a chiseled blond blockbuster god is riding the high of playing a Parks and Rec goofball, a guardian of the galaxy, and the Lego Movie’s Emmet Brickowski, for instance, and the next he’s responsible for luring us toward disaster with a Passengers or—I’m sorry—a Jurassic World.
It’s a fickle game. And Pine has been playing it well. In the last two-and-a-half years, the only Chris who can sing can also boast (if he were so inclined to boast, which he probably isn’t, since he also seems like the nicest Chris next to Chris Evans) a near-sterling record of roles in recommendable hits. Hot bank robber. Superhero boyfriend. Science dad. Spider-Man. He could do no wrong.
Until I Am the Night.
ADVERTISEMENT
The six-episode TNT miniseries has all the makings of greatness: it re-teams Pine with his Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and casts him as a hardboiled reporter in an L.A. noir mystery surrounding a promising lead in the Black Dahlia murder case. Pine hams it up as Jay Singletary, a Korean War veteran living in trauma-wracked squalor, desperate enough to take (and cut corners to deliver) assignments no newspaper stringer would volunteer for. He’s playing against type here, an opportunity he embodies with jittery, self-destructive mania, relishing every minute. Jenkins, meanwhile, executive produces and directs the first two episodes, establishing intrigue in the seedy, neon-lit glow of this civil rights-era Los Angeles.
But neither Pine’s nor Jenkins’ considerable talents save the series from its strangely listless pacing and superficial exploration of the racial biases, institutional corruption, and gendered exploitation at the heart of the story of Fauna Hodel, the real-life adopted teenager (here played by India Eisley) whose search for her biological roots uncovers horrific ties to a Black Dahlia suspect. Written and created by Sam Sheridan (adapted from Hodel’s memoir One Day She’ll Darken), the series is a slick, functional update of an L.A. noir. But it takes far too long to get weird—you’ll have to stick around until episode four for the sex cults, incest, violence, and freaky performance art; until then, it’s too many clichés from movies you’ve seen before, with little new to add.
For three episodes, the series cleaves itself in two, following Jay as he throws himself in and out of jail while tracking down murder clues in L.A., and Fauna as she realizes the woman who raised her in Reno (a once-aspiring singer, now alcoholic maid played by an explosive Golden Brooks) is not her birth mother. Fauna’s fights with her adoptive mother are among the show’s best scenes—they crackle with the fury, love and resentment familiar to mothers and daughters. But even as Fauna packs up to L.A. and tracks down her biological family, her story unfolds too slowly to match Jay’s, leaving one half of the show to spin its wheels until both characters meet and the thriller kicks off in earnest.
The show’s Los Angeles gestures at the racial tensions of the time, reflecting riots or acts of brutality in the background. Fauna believes herself to be biracial—she’s both bullied for it by other kids and harassed by white policemen. Black characters deliver lines that resonate tellingly both then and today: “Some white men take it personal, like me trying to succeed is taking something from them,” a friend tells her. Later, though, the real doozy of the series, a revelation from Fauna’s birth mother that indicts a certain white liberal fantasy about black people, is simply skated over, untouched.
Jay and Fauna’s investigations lead them to her maternal grandfather, a prominent white gynecologist named George Hodel, known for his connections to every corrupt institution in L.A. from City Hall to the LAPD. Jay pinpoints the doctor as his suspect for the murder of not only the so-called Black Dahlia, 22-year-old waitress Elizabeth Short (whose corpse was famously cut in half, bled dry, washed, and posed in an empty lot for passerby to find), but also a number of other women. A veteran cop offers to Jay that the Black Dahlia killer seemed motivated by hate—what else could drive someone to something so gruesome? One walk through Hodel’s art collection, a series of abstract paintings of women’s body parts, and another motive occurs to Jay: a twisted sense of artistry.
That’s about all the insight I Am the Night seems comfortable offering about gendered violence or the psychology of killers. It’s a stylish series, if not particularly daring, and what little payoff it offers for six hours of story won’t satisfy everyone.
Instead, the biggest draw here is the performances, from Brooks’ tragic teetering from tenderness to rage, mining the conflicted emotions of a mother, to Pine’s wheedling, stumbling, pathetic Jay, a man haunted to the point of self-loathing. As George’s wife Corinna Hodel, Connie Nielsen brings a charmingly batty energy, with a wild accent, dramatic costumes, and only a vague purpose in the story—a delight.
Eisley, the daughter of film’s most famous Juliet, Olivia Hussey, is dealt the toughest hand. Fauna spends much of her own story trembling or in tears, even after she’s committed acts braver or more dangerous than most grown men ever do. It’s not until episode five (the first not written by Sheridan, but by Monica Beletsky) that she’s allowed a fleeting sense of humor and a sense of camaraderie with Jay. Eisley comes alive opposite Pine, while he takes on a fraternal warmth around her that adds new shades of heartbreak to Jay. All the more regrettable that both leads spend half the series apart.
It speaks volumes about Pine’s abilities, though, that in those first limp, hour-long installments, he can hot-wire momentum with little more than his unpredictable presence, smirking through bloody teeth in one scene, tying his own noose in the next, startling you with vulnerability when you least expect it. He may be surrounded by clichés, from a hard-ass editor who’d trade a human cost for a story, to the brutal cops impeding his search for the truth. That’s the thing about film noir heroes: they often realize they can’t save everyone on their own. Not that it stops them from trying.
Forget it, Jay. This ain’t Chinatown.
