It is reminiscent of Sean Durkin’s excellent 2011 film Martha Marcy May Marlene, also about a cult, which featured breaks in time that feel more like coils of memory than flashbacks or flashforwards. In line with Pomare’s novel, the show’s writers (Cameron, McCredie and Osamah Sami) introduce a multi-timeline structure that sneaks up on you and delivers a twist. ‘The show’s best performance belongs to Teresa Palmer. For reasons I won’t get into here, Freya is both inside and outside the cult’s world, giving her a unique position in the narrative. She plays Freya, a single parent alarmed by the aforementioned abduction and concerned about her young son’s wellbeing. The show’s best performance belongs to Teresa Palmer, a fine actor with a knack for looking haunted in non-obvious ways a quick look at her face tells us something’s gone wrong in her world and we want to know what. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning A scaled-back performance from Guy Pearce as the fusty, softly-spoken Dr Bryce Latham, who is also part of the cult, solidifies a sense that The Clearing isn’t doing a lot with its big hitters. We wait for the big moments of cult-y weirdness but, at least initially, the show’s directors – Walker and Otto’s half-sister Gracie Otto – treat Adrienne a little like the shark from Jaws: more scary as an idea than in flesh and blood. Otto is very well cast in this part, projecting a chillingly holier-than-thou temperament: smug, screwy, sophisticated and, of course, batshit crazy.įor the first couple of episodes at least (all that was made available to review), her presence is carefully metered. It lends itself well to drama, which offers more freedom for a heavily sculpted, moody atmosphere and the performative space for an actor to take on that holy grail of roles: the cult leader. This stranger-than-fiction story has been the subject of other works, including the 2019 documentary series The Cult of the Family. ‘A scaled-back performance’ … Guy Pearce as the fusty, softly-spoken Dr Bryce Latham.
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