If you’re a Netflix subscriber and you like true crime, you’ve probably seen The Staircase, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph – the documentary series made by two French filmmakers that was a huge hit in 2018.
It told the story of Michael Peterson, a novelist who dialled 911 one night in 2001 to report that his wife Kathleen had fallen down the stairs in their home in North Carolina. He insisted that it was an accident, but the sight that greeted police on their arrival suggested foul play: there was blood everywhere, and Kathleen had sustained “shocking” head injuries.
Now, HBO Max has turned the Netflix show into an eight-part drama starring Colin Firth as Peterson and Toni Collette as his wife. It’s compelling for the same reason the documentary was compelling: you really want to find out the truth about what happened that night.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Although Collette is well-cast here, it’s Firth who “steals the show”, said Rachel Cooke in The New Statesman. He captures Peterson perfectly: “his cheery coercion of those close to him; his hoary, overworked, cracker-barrel indignation”. Yet the series still feels “superfluous: a last gasp for an already quite worn out story”.
Well, I was “transfixed”, said Hugo Rifkind in The Times. Yes, there are too many flashbacks, but watching Peterson’s character unravel is gripping. “No matter how often we have seen a post-tragedy dynamic in a drama, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one quite like this. Never melodramatic, it is cold and shaking and surreal and grim.”
-
The 7 best police procedurals of all timeThe Week Recommends There’s more to cops and robbers than just nabbing the bad guy at the end of the show
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Navy jet, helicopter crash half-hour apart off carrierSpeed Read A US Navy helicopter and a fighter jet both crashed in the same half-hour during separate operations
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipeThe Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
The 5 best TV shows about the mobThe Week Recommends From the show that launched TV’s golden age to a Batman spin-off, viewers can’t get enough of these magnificent mobsters
-
6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
-
Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
-
Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
