Felix
This Spanish drama starts in grizzly manner. The camera slowly reveals a double murder, involving a prostitute with links to the Chinese mob. Felix is film director Cesc Gay’s stab at big-budget TV and in the build up to its screening he has spoken about taking inspiration from Hitchcock’s back catalogue, especially the James Stewart era of suspense, thrills and murk. Felix doesn’t quite reach those heady heights but as Leonardo Sbaraglia in the lead role does manage to encapsulate the same fish-out-of-water feel that Stewart brought to Hitchcock’s best thrillers. Shot on location in Andorra, the setting is breathtaking and there’s a healthy dollop of humour amid the gruesome corpses. ITV is dealing with the international rights, but as of yet there’s no UK deal in place.
Mother
This South Korean take on the missing child drama lacked any of the real punch needed to make it stand out. An ornithologist (Kang Su Jin) turns to teaching after her research project is mothballed and finds herself in a class with kids who relentlessly bully each other, make jokes about poo and even managed to poison the school’s pet duck. The real villains here aren’t the kids, however. It’s the guardians of Kim Hye Na, the class’s most bullied child, who is physically and mentally abused by her mother’s gamer boyfriend. Ms Kang is then forced to choose: it’s her birds or the children, as she’s given a way back to ornithology. Unlike Broadchurch – or even Stranger Things – there’s never any real shocks or twists to speak of as things unfold in pretty much the exact manner you might expect.
Killing Eve
Phoebe Waller-Bridge thriller for BBC America didn’t win any of the big prizes, but is clearly something special. An assassin is running around Europe offing targets with clinical accuracy and, it has to be said, incredible style. Jodie Comer plays the killer, while Sandra Oh is the bumbling but brilliant MI5 agent tasked with finding out who she is and stopping her before she kills another mark. It’s got Waller-Bridge’s trademark humour, mixed with classy production and locations that make it feel like The Night Manager or McMafia, except with a bit more self-awareness and a bit less of an obsession with being like James Bond. Bravura stuff.
When Heroes Fly
This Israeli drama took home the big prize from the inaugural Canneseries. Following in the footsteps of Fauda (Netflix), the action centres on a platoon of Israeli army reservists who stumble upon an IDF tank stranded in enemy territory. It contains vital intelligence that, if it fell into the hands of Hezbollah, would be terrible for the Israeli forces. After they intervene and things go pear-shaped, we fast forward to years after the event where the remaining platoon members are trying to put the pieces back together. The soldiers become fragmented and disillusioned as some of them are blamed for the incidents while others can’t forgive betrayals. Somewhere between Homeland, True Detective and Naked and The Dead, it’s gripping, if far from original stuff, and unlike anything else in the competition.
Lykkeland
The elevator pitch for this might go something like: “It’s the Norwegian Mad Men, but set in the North Sea oil fields.” Oil Men, anyone? Set in the coastal town of Stavanger during the oil boom of the 70s, the God-fearing folk of northern Norway are pitted against the bolo tie-wearing hordes from Texas and Oklahoma who descend on the town to try to tap its seemingly dry wells. It’s got a lot of the prestige TV tropes: period setting, period costumes, period cars and lots of drinking, but feels a bit too close to Mad Men at times, especially the pregnancy storyline that mirrors Peggy Olson’s tale almost beat for beat. The tensions between the Americans and the Norwegians provide a nice constant source of drama, and there’s even a bit of anti-free-market subtext as the characters discuss, at some length, the pros and cons of the Scandinavian economic system compared to the US one.
The Hunter
Il Cacciatore (The Hunter in English) is another Italian-produced mob drama. Like Maltese, the action is set in Sicily in the 90s, when the justice system began the difficult process of untying itself from the Mafia which had infiltrated its ranks. Here, the hunter refers to Saverio Barone, a young prosecutor who shopped his own boss for corruption before going on to become one of the most successful anti-Mafia figures of the 90s. Lead actor Francesco Montanari took home the big acting prize from Canneseries and the show itself has been bought by Amazon. Definitely one to seek out for fans of Maltese and Walter Presents’ stylish foreign fare.
The Typist
Definitely one of the stranger entrants in the inaugural competition, this German thriller sounds incredible on paper. A typist who transcribes police interviews takes matters into her own hands when a seemingly guilty man manages to get off on a technicality. It’s a bit like a straight version of John Waters’ 90s comedy Serial Mom. As things escalate, it’s hard to buy into the violence and anger being doled out by someone who was meticulously transcribing interviews a few scenes before, even if she is motivated by the mysterious death of her own daughter. But if you can put that to one side, it’s bizarrely thrilling and hugely mundane at the same time.
