A Murder at the End of the World: Homme Fatale
November 14, 2023 2:25 PM - Season 1, Episode 1 - Subscribe
An amateur sleuth receives a mysterious invitation to a reclusive tech billionaire's secret retreat.
Two episodes in so far: at this point, the show appears to be a curious mix of true crime emulation, whodunit and high-tech thriller, told across three separate time periods. Achingly slow in parts, but it's building to something.
Partially directed, written by and starring Britt Marling. I find the multilayered female characters she creates really interesting, and Darby promises the same degree of complexity. The glacial pace is also a hallmark of Marling's work.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 9:54 PM on November 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Partially directed, written by and starring Britt Marling. I find the multilayered female characters she creates really interesting, and Darby promises the same degree of complexity. The glacial pace is also a hallmark of Marling's work.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 9:54 PM on November 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I really wanted to like this – it's shot gorgeously, I love murder mysteries – but I found the dialogue to be wooden at best. Also, while I'm not exactly looking for realism here, the whole mechanics around hacking and installing a dodgy app on your phone seemed off.
posted by adrianhon at 6:48 AM on November 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by adrianhon at 6:48 AM on November 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Well, I'm a little bemused by the show because in this and the following episode the computing stuff is in a weird place with regard to verisimilitude. To me, it's in the uncanny valley, if that makes sense. I'm surprised they're going to the effort they are, but it still doesn't make much sense.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:00 AM on November 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:00 AM on November 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Only watched the first episode so far but just going throw out Claire Evans’ Searching For Susy Thunder from a few years back.
posted by thecaddy at 7:07 PM on November 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by thecaddy at 7:07 PM on November 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think I said awhile ago that Brit Marling seems like she walked out of the pages of OMNI (PG rated OMNI if such can be imagined). New Age mushiness infused with tech fantasy. She's got a retrofuturist angle to her stuff that's centered a little deeper than aesthetics.
The dialogue is clunky. Shyamalan-level clunkiness sometimes, efficiently speaking plot rationalizations instead of things a human would say. I think because there's just nothing else for the characters to say. It's dumb and always kind of jarring for something that's trying to signal constantly about how smart it is to also be dumb.
Hopefully this show will go wildly weird because I guess I'm here for the spectacle of that.
Did not recognize Carl from Triangle of Sadness at first.
posted by fleacircus at 11:18 PM on November 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
The dialogue is clunky. Shyamalan-level clunkiness sometimes, efficiently speaking plot rationalizations instead of things a human would say. I think because there's just nothing else for the characters to say. It's dumb and always kind of jarring for something that's trying to signal constantly about how smart it is to also be dumb.
Hopefully this show will go wildly weird because I guess I'm here for the spectacle of that.
Did not recognize Carl from Triangle of Sadness at first.
posted by fleacircus at 11:18 PM on November 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was pretty dismissive of the OA, but I liked the first episode enough to watch another. Emma Corrine is good here.
posted by grandiloquiet at 4:55 PM on November 23, 2023
posted by grandiloquiet at 4:55 PM on November 23, 2023
So I'm in pain, my heat died (repair is coming tomorrow) and doing laundry. I was looking for something to distract me from all of this, and hulu suggested this. From the trailer it seemed right up my alley.
As intrigued as I was by the opening Silver Doe reading, the rest of the episode seemed determine to push me away.Once we got to the hotel my thought is someone saw Glass Onion and thought, "Let's remove all the fun from it and go from there."
And then at the end I found out it was the same people who made The OA. So my journey with this show ends here.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:04 PM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
As intrigued as I was by the opening Silver Doe reading, the rest of the episode seemed determine to push me away.Once we got to the hotel my thought is someone saw Glass Onion and thought, "Let's remove all the fun from it and go from there."
And then at the end I found out it was the same people who made The OA. So my journey with this show ends here.
posted by miss-lapin at 1:04 PM on November 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Well, I'm a little bemused by the show because in this and the following episode the computing stuff is in a weird place with regard to verisimilitude. To me, it's in the uncanny valley, if that makes sense. I'm surprised they're going to the effort they are, but it still doesn't make much sense.
Uncanny valley is a great way to describe it. That first-gen iPod and those goofy JBL speakers that were everywhere in the mid-2000s existing alongside ubiquitous touchscreen smartphones and AR glasses is weirdly disorienting, in a way that wouldn't matter with more mechanical technology like cars with a similar disparity in age. Maybe because we've internalized that digital consumer electronics have a much shorter shelf-life?
posted by Uncle Ira at 11:36 AM on December 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Uncanny valley is a great way to describe it. That first-gen iPod and those goofy JBL speakers that were everywhere in the mid-2000s existing alongside ubiquitous touchscreen smartphones and AR glasses is weirdly disorienting, in a way that wouldn't matter with more mechanical technology like cars with a similar disparity in age. Maybe because we've internalized that digital consumer electronics have a much shorter shelf-life?
posted by Uncle Ira at 11:36 AM on December 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I want to know what sort of monster designs a hotel with room 11 on the ground floor and room 8 on the upper floor.
posted by autopilot at 3:28 PM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by autopilot at 3:28 PM on December 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
My first thought is that I really don't like that the former fiery hacker superstar is now just sort of a mockable appendage of her famous tech bro spouse. I hope that is resolved in a positive way.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:58 AM on December 28, 2023
posted by hydropsyche at 5:58 AM on December 28, 2023
the iPod feels like a personal affectation of hers, because yeah, there's no way it really makes sense otherwise. Especially not the greyscale screen on her iPod, which puts it at an older model even for those. Really noticeable when they take her phone away on the plane, and shortly afterwards she listens to something on her headphones.
(I'm actually here *because* it's a Brit Marling/Zal Batmanglij show; I loved the OA and probably wouldn't have known this existed otherwise)
posted by vibratory manner of working at 9:43 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
(I'm actually here *because* it's a Brit Marling/Zal Batmanglij show; I loved the OA and probably wouldn't have known this existed otherwise)
posted by vibratory manner of working at 9:43 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Brit Marling saw Glass Onion and was like, "I can make this my kind of weird."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:42 PM on January 29
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:42 PM on January 29
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It's probably just me, but Darby and Bill seem so young.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:38 PM on November 14, 2023 [3 favorites]