NBC
NBC’s The Factor About Pam deserves credit score the place it’s due. It's the 12 months of our Lord—of our waking hell, of our exasperated existence, of our buffet of practically 550 TV collection to observe—2022, and nonetheless the true-crime collection is by some means in contrast to something we’ve ever seen earlier than. That’s no small feat, particularly in the world of true crime, which spawns roughly 97 new reveals per week to satiate the general public’s ravenous urge for food for the style—after which one other slew of copycats hoping to capitalize on the recognition of these.
So, it's extra with awe and perhaps even admiration than derision that we are saying that we don't know what to make of this collection. We’re not solely positive what was being tried. We’re undecided if all these true-crime obsessives who flock to this style like digital camera crews to the scene of a homicide will probably be enamored by it. We’re undecided whether or not we’re presupposed to chortle, to cringe, to dissect, or to be disgusted.
Is that this commentary on the acute exploitation of those circumstances because the style has exploded and spun tragedy and trauma for leisure, or is it simply dangerous? And, most of all, what on earth is Renée Zellweger doing right here?
That is Renée Zellweger’s first main function following her Oscar win for her extraordinary efficiency as Judy Garland in Judy. The Factor About Pam is a metamorphosis of one other type, albeit wholly unbelievable. It could be demeaning and unfair to surprise why this mission was deemed a worthy follow-up to a significant Oscar function. That is, ostensibly, a juicy half, and there appeared to have, at one level, been massive concepts about how you can flip the true-crime collection the other way up—concepts that appeared to have suffered extreme harm throughout its journey to the display screen.
The Factor About Pam premiered the primary of its six episodes on NBC Tuesday night time, and we wished to attend till audiences had an opportunity to see it earlier than sharing our ideas as a result of we’re genuinely curious: Actually, what's going on right here? Do you may have the faintest concept? In case you do, are you able to assist me?
The collection is spun from a collection of Dateline spotlights on the 2011 homicide of Betsy Faria (performed by Katy Mixon within the collection), which NBC Information had additionally beforehand changed into a podcast that shares a reputation with the brand new present. Initially, the killing was pinned on Betsy’s husband, Russ (Glenn Fleshler), who served time for the crime earlier than a retrial exonerated him and led to their neighbor and Betsy’s buddy, Pam Hupp, being charged.
Zellweger performs Pam—or, relatively, Zellweger in a fatsuit and a burned-down Madame Tussaud’s value of prosthetics performs Pam, a busybody Missouri lady who appeared to be extraordinarily annoying but by some means persuade her group that she was well-intentioned and had coronary heart. And was positively not a cold-blooded killer.
Of the million issues to debate right here, the primary needs to be the fatsuit and Zellweger’s efficiency, as a result of the 2 entities are inseparable, like plastic jowls glued to an A-list star’s face.
The discourse surrounding the ethics and, even, the cruelty of prosthetics and padding to de-prettify Hollywood’s starlets and hunks and obtain the spectacular feat of being “not stunning” has surfaced usually, and deservedly so. There was a time when this was thought of essentially the most direct strategy to signify a thespian’s appearing capacity; so versatile are their abilities that they'll even play fats. However that point has lengthy handed, which signifies that at the same time as prosthetic strategies and capabilities have gotten an increasing number of subtle, this sort of characterization and casting myopia—An precise plus-sized actress? Heavens, no.—has turn into extra controversial than appreciated.
It’s not a hard-and-fast rule. Not each instance is Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal.
Sarah Paulson engaged thoughtfully with the backlash in opposition to the prosthetics she wore to play Linda Tripp in Impeachment: American Crime Story, but she additionally delivered a riveting, lived-in, and revealing efficiency. Colin Farrell is made up past recognition to play Penguin in The Batman, an outlandish, cheeky stunt greater than a speaking level in any dialogue over what is acceptable in casting these roles.
The Factor About Pam, sadly, doesn’t obtain both caveat or exemption. It’s not a spectacular transformation or an harmless sideshow. It's Renée Zellweger in a fatsuit.
Zellweger is making an attempt arduous, and, in some respects, she’s delivering an enchanting, nuanced efficiency. However she’s additionally making an attempt arduous in different methods: to lumber round whereas carrying all this padding and prosthetics in any plausible means, or to settle into this excessive bodily characterization in order that it’s all not distracting. Which it's. You stare so curiously on the prosthetics in each scene that it’s arduous to deal with anything.
That’s unlucky, as a result of The Factor About Pam proves Zellweger’s shining reward isn’t simply that she’s a Hollywood main woman, however a useful character actress. In case you’ve seen her in Nurse Betty or Chicago or Bridget Jones’ Diary, that a lot is clear. There are those that aren’t followers of her Oscar-winning efficiency in Chilly Mountain, arguing that her accent appeared like somebody made each Southern and Western dialect its personal key on a xylophone after which had her play it haphazardly whereas blindfolded. However there was one thing gratifying about her all-in boldness.
Her accent work is much extra centered as Pam, and, whereas she takes massive swings together with her efficiency, they’re focused. When the digital camera is educated on her for considered one of Pam’s rambling, bumbling monologues during which she tries to control the narrative, she strikes intriguing notes of darkish humor. However when that extends to the physicality and the prosthetics—Pam is sort of at all times chewing on the straw of a fuel station Massive Gulp soda, and at one level buffoonishly plops onto a large white bean bag chair within the premiere—it’s as if all of this, the make-up and the comedy, is supposed to make a imply joke not simply out of Pam Hupp, however the very actual (although non-murderous) Midwestern lady that she represents.
The comedy is the opposite factor.
The Factor About Pam begins with a voiceover from Keith Morrison, the identical acquainted voice who's the narrator for Dateline. There’s an inherent winking there, in case you acknowledge Morrison’s supply and the signature Dateline format. Is it NBC’s means of demanding credit score for his or her information journal’s early adoption of the true-crime craze? Is it an request for forgiveness for the methods during which its protection created a monster? Or is it an audacious narrative system that nearly instantly goes awry? (Sure. That.)
All of these questions additionally financial institution on an viewers member understanding the Dateline reference, which isn't a assure. It’s additionally not required, however Tuesday night time’s premiere is a jarring expertise in case you don’t.
Renée Zellweger in The Factor About Pam
NBC
It’s simply earlier than Christmas when this heinous homicide takes place, which the voiceover alerts us to with the morose glee of Boris Karloff’s prologue to the How the Grinch Stole Christmas TV particular. The mischievous humor is definitely at odds with the grisly particulars of the occasions at play, nevertheless it does appear to be intentional.
The present is an apparent homage to the Coen brothers with its interaction between the darkish and grotesque, comedy mined from quirky Midwest characters mishandling terrible crimes, and a keen-eyed examination of the elements of a group and the machinations of a police and judicial system that reveal themselves because the story is informed. However what if that interaction is awkward, that comedy steadily tone-deaf, and that examination nowhere close to as sharp because the creators might imagine? What then are you left with?
Properly, I nonetheless don’t know. As a result of the factor is, I used to be intrigued by all the pieces I noticed in The Factor About Pam—intrigued in methods good and methods oh-so dangerous—and definitely extra so than I've been by so lots of the relentless true-crime collection which can be being produced. Every part about it's attention-grabbing, from the casting of Zellweger all the way down to the tone and what the collection is likely to be making an attempt to say, whether or not in regards to the Hupp case, the systemic failings behind it, or this style as an entire.
Perhaps it’s factor to be so unmoored by a TV present. For higher or worse, that destabilization, that decided need for readability on what this present is, will maintain me watching. Yet one more considered one of The Factor About Pam’s surprises.