Evidently, Camille had hoped to disappear from Wind Gap without a trace. Too bad her editor at the fictional St. Louis Chronicle, an avuncular type named Frank Curry (Miguel Sandoval), wants her to go back there and investigate the murder of one girl, Ann Nash (Kaegan Baron), and the disappearance of another, Natalie Keene (Jessica Treska). “You’re only half-good at writing,” he tells her, but a reporter’s personal journey to cover what could be a serial killer in her hometown has “Pulitzer” written all over it. Plus, Curry says, maybe the trip will “flush some things out, get you back on your feet.” The obvious question — after what? — is never answered. The cast of characters in Wind Gap is colorful: Vickery (Matt Craven), the local police chief, has no intention of letting a big-city journalist stick her nose into his case. He doesn’t even soften when he realizes that Camille is the daughter of a local fixture, Adora Crellin (Patricia Clarkson). “You moved away,” he says, as though he’s accusing her of a crime. A poker-faced detective called in from Kansas City to help Vickery, Richard Willis (Chris Messina) is an outsider who’s feeling the locals’ “sugary passive aggression” — and he’s shaping up to be Camille’s most likely love interest. The great Elizabeth Perkins plays Jackie, a boozy gossip who’s on the outs with her old friend Adora. (Just about everyone in Wind Gap seems to drink like Camille.) As befits a town that seems frozen in the mid-20th century, a new clique of roller-skating teens has taken over for Camille and Marian. In fact, their leader turns out to be Camille’s half sister, Amma (Eliza Scanlen), a beautiful girl who smokes, wears skimpy dresses and steals the flowers from a shrine for Natalie, but who plays the part of a modest, obedient daughter when Adora is around. “I’m just her little doll to dress up,” Amma says, then mentions that their mother calls Camille incorrigible. “I’m incorrigible, too,” the girl proclaims. “Only she doesn’t know it.” Amma seems crafty, in the way that cool teens can be, but you can’t really blame her for deceiving the overprotective Adora, who demands to know where her baby is at all times. An aging Southern belle in a pink house dress, Camille’s mother is the living embodiment of Willis’s sugary passive aggression. “I just wish you had phoned,” Adora says when her eldest daughter turns up on her doorstep. She’s horrified by Camille’s reporting assignment and forbids her from talking about Ann and Natalie in her presence because she’s still reeling from their disappearances. After Camille spends the night passed out in her own car, the tension between the two women boils over. “When you’re here, everything you do comes back on me,” Adora icily reminds her. Wind Gap itself seems ready to erupt by the end of the episode, after Natalie’s dusty body is found propped up on a window ledge between two buildings. Although the cops stay mum, two possible suspects have emerged. John Keene (Taylor John Smith), Natalie’s older brother, is displaying some suspicious behavior, and all the public moping he’s been doing about his sister — even before her death is confirmed — suggests that perhaps he doth protest too much. Also, when Natalie’s body is found, he’s practically across the street with Amma and her friends.<doc-sep>This one is so different, and it’s all because of Gillian. It all came from her imagination. This heartbreaking story between these women, hurting each other in such a fashion — it’s disturbing. I’m not tackling a project by entering it and going, “Oh, I want to be different than this show and this show and this show.” You just know when you first read when you’ll have something singular and special. [Click here to read our recap of the series premiere.] The series opens with a scene showing young Camille waking up her older self. Why did you choose that sequence to come first? We’ve got to give credit to Marti [Noxon, the show’s creator and an executive producer], who came up with this plan, beautifully blending the past and the present and wondering, sometimes, what’s what. We pushed this concept even a little bit more on the set and then in the cutting room, always to accentuate and to give a sense of perspective, going into her head — what she sees is what we see, and it’s unclear whether it’s real or if it’s a fantasy, a dream, a flashback from the past. You get a sense of when we are because of the political graffiti of Bush and Clinton and Gore, and then she gets to the house. Again, we’re wondering what this is, as the sound design is a little off and has this ghostlike quality. When we discover Amy sleeping, we realize when she wakes up that it was all a dream, and that’s why we were listening to this music from only the left — because as she was sleeping, she lost her right earbud. Right at the beginning, we tell the audience this is going to be a story told from her perspective: what she sees, what she hears, what she dreams of. And there’s this image of a fan turning with someone out of focus in front of it. We don’t know why yet. That’s what we like to do, this kind of storytelling where you don’t have the answers right away.<doc-sep>In the first episode of the HBO mini-series Sharp Objects (created by Buffy the Vampire Slayer all-star Marti Noxon; based on Gillian Flynn’s page-turning novel of the same name; directed by Big Little Lies helmer Jean-Marc Vallée), star Amy Adams does the following: drinks, stares at a toilet in a dingy motel room, drinks some more, is a writer, masturbates while thinking of sexually violent photos, chain smokes, passes out in her car outside the local bar, sees a dead girl, walks out of a funeral, cuts herself, and continues to drink. Point, Sharp Objects is a dark, dour show, where the closest thing to a joke is Adams, as Camille Preaker, calling herself “trash from old money.” It’s also, thanks largely to the canny writing and editing, naturalistic directing, and superb performances (shout out to Patricia Clarkson, who’s constantly on the verge of catching a mighty case of vapors), a very good show. It’s going to be hard to grit through seven more weeks of — mild spoiler for next Sunday’s episode — watching a pig teeth’s get pulled out with pliers, though. We’re here to help. In Sharp Objects, Amy Adams is a self-harming alcoholic journalist who’s suffered extreme traumas, but sometimes, she gets to play fun characters, too! Here’s what I recommend: after every episode of Sharp Objects, you should watch a light and fluffy and amusing Amy Adams movie (there’s a schedule below). Or in Camille speak: the shot is Sharp Objects, the chaser is… Episode 1, “Vanish” — The Muppets Amy Adams was born to be in a Muppets movie playing a school teacher from Smalltown, USA (she also hung out with Elmo once). Here’s how she got the part: “When I heard they were doing a new one, I was really excited. Jason sent me a DVD where he and Kermit were inviting me to be part of The Muppets… Once Kermit asks you to do something, it is really hard to look at him and say, ‘No.’ So I was hooked!” Jealous. The Muppets is delightful, made with warmth and passion from Muppets superfans Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, and they wisely gave Adams her own song: “Me Party.” This is a smile of a movie. Episode 2, “Dirt” — Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Between Doubt and Julie & Julia, two of her best-known movies, Adams appeared in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which is definitely… the second best Night at the Museum movie. It’s mostly notable for Mr. Robot star Rami Malek returning as Pharaoh Ahkmenrah and Adams as Amelia Earhart, which is inspired casting. She plays the legendary pilot as Katharine Hepburn with a fun, adventurous spirit. Adams clearly had a blast. Episode 3, “Fix” — Julie & Julia Remember a time when Amy Adams and Chris Messina weren’t covered in booze sweat (seriously, the Sharp Objects costume department must be loving all the pit stains). Episode 4, “Ripe” — Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Five dollars to the next actor who goes into an audition with this monologue: “It’s because it’s what you love, Ricky. It is who you were born to be. And here you sit, thinking. Well, Ricky Bobby is not a thinker. Ricky Bobby is a driver. He is a doer. And that’s what you need to do. You don’t need to think. You need to drive. You need speed. You need to go out there, and you need to rev your engine. You need to fire it up. You need to grab a hold of that line between speed and chaos, and you need to wrestle it to the ground like a demon cobra! And then, when the fear rises up in your belly, you use it. And you know that fear is powerful, because it has been there for billions of years. And it is good. And you use it. And you ride it; you ride it like a skeleton horse through the gates of hell, and then you win, Ricky. You WIN! And you don’t win for anybody else. You win for you, you know why? Because a man takes what he wants. He takes it all. And you’re a man, aren’t you? Aren’t you?” The casting directors will be as hard as a diamond in an ice storm. Episode 5, “Closer” — Psycho Beach Party In her second on-screen performance, one of this generation’s greatest actresses had the lower half of her bathing suit accidentally ripped off by Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who she tells to “straighten up, fly right, and apply yourself like any decent Presbyterian.” Acting is a weird profession. Episode 6, “Cherry” — Underdog Underdog is, objectively speaking, a bad movie (I’m more of a Marmaduke guy), but we’re not here for good movies, necessarily; we’re here for fun ones, and — call me crazy — I think “Amy Adams as the voice of Sweet Polly Purebred, a female anthropomorphic dog TV news reporter” counts as fun. Episode 7, “Falling” — Leap Year and/or Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Dealer’s choice. There’s: the cute romantic-comedy that doubles as a tourism video for Ireland (so much green on that poster), or the breezy comedy where Adams flirts with Lee Pace and goes on shopping sprees with Frances McDormand. (I take it back: please watch Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.) Episode 8, “Milk” — Enchanted I saved the best and most fun for last. After Leonardo DiCaprio won an Academy Award for The Revenant, Adams became the go-to “wait, he/she hasn’t won an Oscar?! ?” cause. Because, seriously, Amy Adams doesn’t have an Oscar?!? She’s been nominated five (!) times — for Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter, and The Master as a Supporting Actress; and American Hustle as a Lead Actress — and yet. Enchanted isn’t your typical Oscar movie (although three songs in the film were nominated for Best Original Song… they all lost), but Adams, a real-life Disney princess, singing to CGI animals > DiCaprio, a guy once rumored to be raped by a bear, eating raw liver bison, thank you.<doc-sep>
Sharp Objects, HBO's newest (and limited) dark drama series, is an adaptation of Gillian Flynn's (Gone Girl) novel of the same name, which was published in 2006. The limited series stars Amy Adams, 43, as Camille Preaker, a journalist who returns to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri to cover the murder of two teenage girls. Starring opposite of Adams is Patricia Clarkson as Adora Crellin, Camille's estranged mother. Adora lives in a dollhouse-like world of her own design, constructed to the hide the sinister secrets just beneath the surface. Camille, who self harms by carving words into her skin, had been committed to a psychiatric institution before reluctantly returning to the town she so desperately tried to escape. The series introduces Eliza Scanlen, who plays Camille's rebellious 13-year-old half-sister, Amity "Amma" Crellin. Amma wants to escape both the small town of Wind Gap and her mother, just as Camille did when she was Amma's age. We will see Young Camille in flashbacks, played by Sophia Lillis (It). The cast will also include Chris Messina as Richard Willis, a detective from Kansas City assigned to investigate the murders; Henry Czerny as Alan Crellin, Adora's husband and Amma's father; and Matt Craven as Vickery, police chief of Wind Gap. Elizabeth Perkins is Jackie, a knowing and pot-stirring neighbor who watched Camille grow up. The series is based on the novel by Gillian Flynn. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Flynn said she faced some difficulty trying to sell the book to publishers before Crown Publishing Group picked it up, due to the darkness inherent to the story. "Anyone who was interested wanted to do it as a horror film," Flynn said. Sharp Objects is "a character study" hidden inside of a murder mystery. "People were only interested in the yummy, chocolate coating of the mystery and not the Camille part," Flynn explained. "I knew that I was going to lose that if I sold it that way." Flynn has writing credits on all eight episodes in the series, along with showrunner Marti Noxon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Sharp Objects was directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, who came to the project after his success with Big Little Lies (HBO). How to Watch Online Sharp Objects is a limited eight-episode series that will be available for streaming on HBO GO and HBO NOW on July 8 at 9 p.m. EST. It will be available for On Demand viewing on July 9.