Review of "Shining Girls" a dystopian sci-fi thriller starring Elisabeth Moss
Stephen King's plot in the style of David Fincher.
It would seem, what does Leonardo DiCaprio have to do with it? It's hard to believe, but The Shining wouldn't have made it to the small screen if it weren't for the "Titanic" star. In his day, it was Leo who turned his attention to the novel by South African writer Lauren Buces, which won the 2013 August Derleth Award for best fantasy horror. And despite the fact that the film rights to "The Shining" were bought almost immediately after the release of the book, the series had to wait for a long nine years. It is not known for certain what such a delay is related to, but the years that have passed, strangely enough, have only added to the relevance of the story.
Chicago, 1990s. The Sun Times employee Kirby Mazrahi (Elisabeth Moss) hides her real name, makes strange notes in her notebook and suffers from severe post-traumatic stress caused by the attack of a maniac who has been running rampant in the city for years. The killer's victims are young women, seemingly completely unrelated to each other. After discovering another body, Kirby and her enterprising colleague - alcoholic journalist Dan (Wagner Moura) - decide to take the investigation into their own hands. Meanwhile, somewhere in the 1930s, drifter Harper Curtis (Jamie Bell) finds a portal that allows travel to the past and future. The only problem is that each such journey costs the life of one "shining" girl...
Probably the main advantage of The Shining is that the series works on two levels at once: first, it is a model noir thriller, which will appeal to all fans of Fincher's Zodiac or Mindhunter; second, it is a sharp psychological drama, realistically illustrating the inner world of a man who has experienced an act of monstrous violence. Kirby Mazrahi's reality is split into many different "what if..." - parallel life scenarios, none of which, alas, removes the sense of suffocating inner emptiness. In The Shining, Elisabeth Moss's character's movements, though they have a fantastic rationale, carry a clear psychological implication: the violence leaves a giant scorched wound in the soul, which neither time, a happy marriage, nor a beloved job will heal. Perhaps this is the reason why Kirby is so desperately seized by the search for the maniac, for his capture, she believes, will grant a long-awaited release from the prison of the suffering mind.
The themes of mental problems, alcoholism and depression in the setting of mysticism inevitably refer back to the work of Stephen King, who, as we all know, is also the unofficial record holder for the most failed film adaptations. And yet the "Kingian" narrative in this case can hardly be considered a "black mark", because The Shining, unlike most cinematic reinterpretations of the king of horror, thrills and does not let go until the last seconds. In spite of a certain plot redundancy, the series doesn't seem predictable or trite: the familiar setting of the search for the elusive maniac plays more of a second fiddle here, while the struggle between two radically opposing personalities, who involuntarily find themselves in a "Karpman triangle", is brought to the fore: Kirby gradually changes the role of victim to pursuer, and now Harper has to look around shudderingly.
Somewhere in the margins of The Shining there are many feminist contexts, none of which are explicitly mentioned by the authors: a killer traveling through time and space, fueled by the energy of the shining, bright and talented girls, seems an obvious metaphor for the centuries-old male monopoly on life, when the female sex was at best a convenient accessory, but not an equal partner. In this light, the figure of the protagonist, the repressed but unbroken Kirby, who follows in the footsteps of her abuser, is nothing less than the embodiment of a revived female emancipation.
This article was sponsored by Haris Handzic
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