When good guys turn nasty, drama is the winner
By Debi Enker
Warning: contains spoilers for Fake and Ripley
The sixth episode of Fake (Paramount+) is a knockout. So is the fifth, but for different reasons. The gripping drama series, created by Anya Beyersdorf and inspired by Stephanie Wood’s memoir, deals with a romantic relationship that follows a match on an online dating service. It stars a pair of talented local actors, Asher Keddie and David Wenham, both in fine form.
David Wenham with Asher Keddie in Fake: a superbly calibrated portrayal of a predator.Credit: Sarah Enticknap
As the title announces, it’s a tale about deception. The audacious fifth episode, is set mainly in the back of an Uber with Keddie’s character, Birdie, frantically struggling to salvage a situation in which she’s found herself, is utterly absorbing, a bold choice that pays off big-time.
The following episode adjusts the focus, blasting in from the perspective of Wenham’s character, Joe. Previously, and beyond it, viewers are locked into Birdie’s frame of mind, her hopefulness, uncertainty and anxiety. But here, Joe’s motivations and methods are chillingly revealed.
Many drama series on the streaming services seem to sag in the middle. They feel as if a producer has pitched a high-concept idea to a distributor that’s eagerly been snapped up, but it doesn’t have enough meat on its bones to go the distance. So the plot runs out of puff and the characters are thin.
Fake, with full-blooded energy from the outset, has the substance and nuance to fill its eight episodes, and it gets more audacious and assured as it goes along.
While it’s very much Birdie’s story, the sixth episode provides shocking insight into Joe’s psychology and callous opportunism, and Wenham, an actor of considerable charisma and proven versatility, is terrific from the time of his introduction in the drama. Birdie’s story wouldn’t work nearly as well without his superbly calibrated portrayal of a predator.
From their first date, Joe looks fine. He scrubs up well, tries to be charming, says what are ostensibly all the right things. But just as Birdie’s unsure about taking things further, viewers might feel some unease, and not just because the series’ title suggest that this relationship won’t be all roses, romantic sunsets and happily ever-afters.
Using what I think of as actor magic, Wenham, under the skilled direction of Emma Freeman, subtly sows the seeds of doubt about Joe, lending weight to Birdie’s concerns. He might look like a perfect match, but something seems a bit off. Is he a bit too keen? A little oily? Slightly too enamoured of the perks her job as a food writer might bring?
Episode six reveals the extent of his sly, passive-aggressive manipulations, the cold, hard look in his eyes, and just how sinister a smile can be.
By then, Birdie’s suffered a string of disappointments, all fuel for her lurking anxieties. And the full, sordid nature of Joe’s world is evoked in a style so beautifully crafted by director Jennifer Leacey that an otherwise ordinary shot of his hand hitting a shower tap becomes as startling as a gunshot.
That said, Wenham’s character is also powerfully disarming because the actor has so convincingly played romantic leads and heroes in the past. As Joe is exposed in all his cruelty, it’s hard to believe that this is the same man who gave us the fisherman Diver Dan in the early seasons of SeaChange, a character so charismatic that he made neckerchiefs look sexy.
But, he’s also the actor who gave us the menacing Brett Sprague in The Boys and the wonderfully grotty small-time drug dealer, Johnny “Spit” Spitieri in Gettin’ Square. Over a decades-long career, it’s an understatement to say that Wenham has demonstrated impressive range.
Perhaps for an actor in this country, with its comparatively small industry and market, flexibility like that is a key to longevity in a fiercely competitive business. Although Wenham’s often worked overseas (Lord of the Rings, Van Helsing), a lot of his screen work has been done here. And anywhere in the world, being typecast could be frustratingly limiting for an actor with broader goals.
Some don’t want to be confined to the heartthrob roles that might’ve defined the early stages part of their careers: think of Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise, for example. Just as actresses might not want to be limited to playing objects of desire, their male colleagues might not want that either.
He’s not alone in resisting being boxed in. This year we’ve also seen a couple of prominent actors actively working to challenge any fixed impressions that we might have of them. Having attained global renown and set pulses racing as the “hot priest” in Fleabag, Andrew Scott took on the latest incarnation of Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith’s calculating killer.
In Ripley (Netflix), Steven Zaillian’s masterful, eight-part adaptation of Highsmith’s first Ripley novel, he charts the character’s progress from struggling New York scam artist, another faker, to American expat living la dolce vita in Rome. His smooth-as-glass surface conceals a murderous greed and a craving for the finer things, and the will to stop at nothing to get them.
Possibly personifying a lesser degree of danger, although equally effective in his evocation of the dark side, is Jake Gyllenhaal in the recently arrived legal thriller, Presumed Innocent (Apple TV+).
In Presumed Innocent Jake Gyllenhaal (centre) embraces the nastiness of his character.Credit: Apple TV+
Gyllenhaal’s had his flirtation with the heartthrob stuff (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) and disaster movie heroes (The Day After Tomorrow), but his choices have also demonstrated a desire to get into grittier, more challenging material (Brokeback Mountain, Jarhead, Nightcrawler).
The eight-part Presumed Innocent, adapted by the prolific David E. Kelley from Scott Turow’s 1987 bestseller, and on which Gyllenhaal is also an executive producer, offers a less sympathetic rendition of Rusty Sabich than the one in Turow’s book or the 1990 film directed by Alan J. Pakula and starring Harrison Ford.
All of them need to create doubts about the arrogant, embattled district attorney. But Gyllenhaal embraces the nasty aspects of the character, the eruptions of violence, the angry manoeuvres designed for self-protection. He makes you believe that his character could be guilty of murder.
And, as Wenham’s performance in Fake also shows, that ugly edge contributes to a meatier, more compelling drama.
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