Tom hiddleston deep blue sea8/18/2023 She’s both caring and careless, likable and exhausting, determined and indecisive - and never anything less than compelling.Īs for Hiddleston, it’s a thrill to see him try on new colors again after spending the past half decade in Loki green onscreen. As written by Symon’s team and played by Danes, Cora has the un-pin-down-able quality of a real person. It’s hardly a surprise that she looks not just happier but more alive in Aldwinter, despite the hardships she encounters there. In contrast, Cora’s upper-crust London home is done in sumptuous fabrics, intricate designs and sparkling gems and metals, and yet Cora looks trapped by the gold bars of her elaborate bed frame, and weighed down by the heavy colors and shadows that fill the space. The landscape is a wild and unruly one, so indifferent to human life as to look almost alien at times, and it feels like little wonder the people living in it find both faith and science to fall short in their efforts to understand or control it. Aldwinter is established through long shots of marshes covered in mist so thick, it threatens to swallow objects whole. Clio Barnard, who directed all six episodes, has an eye for beauty, especially of the strange, austere sort that Cora finds in the countryside. Those open to seeing where the tide takes them, though, will find much to like. At the same time, those who’ve previously enjoyed dirt-caked British relationship dramas like Ammonite or The Dig may have already been warded off by the eerie tone suggested by the marketing. Those who’ve come expecting fantasy-tinged monster hunts will likely be disappointed by The Essex Serpent‘s disinterest in embracing the supernatural. The serpent, once the main focus of the lead characters, recedes from view, as the personal journeys and relationships between the characters come to the fore.įor some viewers, the change in pace will come as an annoyance. Then, in its last couple of episodes, The Essex Serpent switches gears to become a more conventional drama, and eventually mellows into an ending far gentler than the first few hours of the series might have given any cause to expect. It is, as Cora’s maid and companion Martha (Hayley Squires) observes with a shudder, “witch-burning country.” In the tense atmosphere of Aldwinter, adolescent girls cast spells and fall victim to disturbing fits, while superstitious men hang skinned moles to ward off the beast. Despite their oppositional stances, it’s not long before the two realize they’re more alike than different, and find themselves drawn to each other in spite of his happy marriage to the kindly Stella (Clémence Poésy).įor the first two-thirds of its six hourlong episodes, The Essex Serpent conjures a seductively dark, mysterious mood, with even a few scares that wouldn’t feel out of place in an A24 thriller. Upon arrival, she’s greeted by a town full of people increasingly scared and suspicious of a monster they’re convinced is coming to claim them for their sins.Īs the local vicar, Will Ransome (Tom Hiddleston), attempts to quell their panic by denying the serpent’s existence and directing their worries toward God, Cora takes a different tack, trying gamely to offer a rational explanation for the disturbances. Intrigued by reports of the creature and freshly liberated from her oppressive marriage, Cora, an amateur naturalist, makes the impulsive decision to move to Aldwinter to search for what she theorizes could be a type of plesiosaur that’s escaped both extinction and evolution. Cast: Claire Danes, Tom Hiddleston, Frank Dillane, Clémence Poésy, Hayley SquiresĮxecutive producers: Anna Symon, Clio Barnard, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Patrick Walters, Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta
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