Pain and trauma can take on many different forms, they can mutate, change and directly influence our own perception of reality and what we could read in others. Each of us applies a different reaction to those events that leave a deep mark, and in the specific reaction of each individual are hidden all those weaknesses that are perhaps impossible to label, fleeting and at the same time present, cumbersome, pressing and suffocating… certainly difficult to share 100%. Baby Reindeer, the miniseries written, created and created by Richard Gaddimmediately makes clear an analysis of the human of this type, and chooses to do so in the most direct way possible by involving us in the fixed gaze of its own protagonists (if interested in noir stories with dark and deviant hues, we refer you to our review of Ripley).
Released on Netflix on April 11, 2024, Baby Reindeer quickly managed to gain the attention of subscribers, becoming a real phenomenon of general interest. The dark charm of his narration, and that particular and gradual sensation of unease that derives from the unfolding of events, finds confirmation and lifeblood in the careful, deeply introspective and detailed writing of the protagonist himself, who tells and tells himself starting from a event in his life that marked him to the point of changing him forever. Developing from one autobiographical awareness of both partial and markedly subjective rootsthe miniseries goes deeper and deeper into the life and destabilizing, fascinating and darkly attractive relationship of two people (while you’re at it, don’t miss the Netflix series of April 2024).
Baby Reindeer: is there a limit?
“This is a true story”is one of the opening sentences of Baby Reindeer to immediately contextualize its veracityor at least an inspiration found in the life of Richard Gadd (main protagonist and creator of the miniseries in question).
Starting from a fundamental detail like this, and from the fact that Gadd himself transformed the story into a play and produced for the small screen, we are immediately catapulted into the existence of Donny, a temporary bartender in London whose true dream is to become an established, full-time comedian. His gaze in the opening sequence seems exhausted and at the same time shaken by something, and as we see him approaching a policeman to report his stalker, a question immediately becomes heavy and cumbersome, and then becomes the key to understanding of the entire story: why did it take him 6 months to report it to the police?
Going back for a moment we begin to discover the initial dynamics of Baby Reindeer. During a shift at the pub like many others, Donny finds himself in front of a woman who looks sorry and heartbroken. Empathizing with a silent pain that not even he knows and can define, she decides to do her a kindness by offering her a cup of tea. Martha (played by a great Jessica Gunning), introduces himself to him as a lawyer with a great career that began some time ago and important clients, except that at the moment he apparently doesn’t have any money. The simple and casual choice of offering her a hot drink, however, will trigger from that precise moment a sick and apparently unbreakable bonda visceral, cumbersome and deviant fixation that will indelibly and profoundly influence Donny’s life and some shadows that he has been dragging inside for some time, buried in a part of himself that is not as distant as he thought.
What are you willing to do for your dreams?
All the fascination with Baby Reindeer derives precisely from its inherent biographical fragility. In trying to put the pieces of a destructive experience back together, it’s the same Richard Gadd to get naked, to show himself in everything and throughout exposing the demons that torment him and have long shaped his existence. In the act of showing itself beyond all appearance, lies the greatest effort of a miniseries that sprouts little by little, managing to keep the spectators in suspense and mark them, dragging them into an abyss into which not even the slightest ray of light seems to reach. In taking on such a responsibility, however, the serial story remains crystal clear in its intentions precisely thanks to the charm of its own narrator, and of a cast that works great in what it does and represents.
There are no filters in Baby Reindeer, there are no censorships in the chronicle of a traumatizing personal experience, and its short- and long-range consequences. The abuse and violence, both physical and psychological, experienced by Gadd, attract and at the same time deeply disturb, in a narrative with both fascinating and disturbing features. From the experience of a man who is stalked by a woman he met and got to know by chance, an inner journey stands out at the center of which we find beliefs, objectives, sacrifices and above all fragilities of a human being who struggles to find himself, or to affirm that image of himself that he seems to have always been chasing. In the dark and difficult to understand progression of such a story, however, we find the voice of a narrator who continually breaks up the ongoing action, contextualising its fate through a narrative attitude and a hilarity that burns and corrodes everything in contact with the more human nature of the ongoing story.
To keep your attention high Baby Reindeerin addition to the main themes and developments, is its own the formal construction made of some out-of-scale interpretations (like that of Jessica Gunning), of jokes that tone down and stick around, of a soundtrack that is always coherent in terms of songs and combinations in this sense, and of a suffocating direction built on close-ups and very close-ups capable of imprinting the secret intimacy of the main protagonists forever on the small screen. Here the camera, before anything else, often finds itself investigating behind their lost looks, the uncomfortable and out of phase sarcasm, together with an editing that alternates frenetic and oxygen-free moments with an almost morbid interest in ongoing feelings and their hypothetical meaning.
Baby Reindeerhowever, does not exhaust all its thematic and narrative potential in building a story of stalking in which a man is subjected to the pressing and deviant attentions of a woman without rules or restraints, but it starts precisely from this to unpack from the inside the life experience of two people compared, each with its own specific baggage of experiences, traumas and demons to face and exorcise. Here, from the initial fragments of a surprising matter towards which it is easy to empathize, yes develops a sort of reporting and analysis from which no one can completely escapefurther fascinating and dragging you into an abyss that perhaps doesn’t need too many explanations or justifications, always remaining magnetic.
