Been pushing through "Sharp Objects" (from 2018, HBO Max now). My son read the book, so we've been comparing notes during my viewing.
It's a very slow burn, which is why I never finished the first time -- I mustn't have been in the right headspace to deal with the pace -- but my opinion is that it's extremely well done and the acting is great. THere's also a lot of interesting ways in which the show deals with memory. Usually most film with memory/flashbacks just does them as full-fledged memory flashbacks (audio, visual) but this show handles them more in how they actually work. Usually during the regular current-moment plotting, Camille will get visual glimpses (or occasional audio) of past experiences flashing up in her head related to the current moment, sometimes more targeted, sometimes more tangential. But I find this to be more on target with how I experience memories IRL, it's like these flashes of connection to past events and isn't necessarily a full-fledged memory unless I sit down and consciously indulge, and typically they are just these momentary flashes tying me back to the past moment. This does however mean that you cannot half-watch the show, your eyes need to be on the TV the entire time to catch these past glimpses.
I think the show is excellent and my watching of it is definitely a love/hate relationship. In fact, I find myself extremely angry and frustrated much of the time when watching it. This is a sign of how engaging it is, even while my emotional state during the viewing is not necessarily pleasurable. In fact, I'm sometimes feeling like just quitting because I'm so frustrated. My frustration is that it is set in a small town dealing with some really awful human beings and social dynamics, which I experienced myself (to some degree) growing up and still often feel twinges of when I go back to visit, so this show is tapping into all that. Camille dealt with all of her pain, grief, and rage by actively destroying herself in some ways (she's a chronic drinker, and she has carved a lot of stuff into her body over the years), and going back to the hometown is just putting her in emotional and physical jeopardy. Her mother is one of the worst -- a small town matriarch who is in everyone's business, who feels like everyone else's behavior is a commentary on her (for good or ill), and who views herself as the long-suffering perpetual victim of other people's inconsideration, esp Camille. It's very easy to grasp why Camille became so self-destructive, because she manifests her pain outwardly in a world where women are either supposed to be engaging on the surface while catty behind the scenes, or just otherwise bear their pain stoically and pretend it doesn't affect them.
The show itself is on the surface about two murders in the local community, but it's actually focused on the dark web extending throughout the community (with Camille's mother like the spider queen at the center) and the psychological impact on the people involved, esp Camille who is both a local and yet now also treated like an outsider after escaping for the "big city" years prior.
The high marks for the show are pretty deserved IMO... but I can't say the experience is entirely pleasurable. Like Camille does in the season at least once, I want to press my face into a pillow and scream in frustration uncontrollably many times over.
