“They say that until the lion tells his story, the hunter will always be the hero,” is the striking opening line of The Lady of the Lakea new series starring (and produced by) Natalie Portman and directed and written by another Israeli who has made it in Hollywood, Alma Har’el.
The series, available on Apple TV+ today, combines dazzling scenes, compelling characters, and authentic suspense with awkward messages. It tells parallel stories of Baltimore in the mid-1960s, focusing on two women who each want to make the most of life and whose lives intersect in unexpected ways.
One of the women is a Jewish housewife, Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman), and the other is a young black mother, Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram), who is struggling to provide for her children and trying to change the system politically. The film is based on a novel by Laura Lippman (who happens to be married to David Simon, creator of Thread), and focuses on painting equally rich portraits of black and Jewish Baltimoreans of that era.
We learn within the first two minutes that Cleo is dead, her body dumped in a lake. The scene shifts about a month earlier, to Thanksgiving Day 1966, when Maddie, feeling harassed, tries to prepare a holiday feast, knowing that her husband, Milton (Brett Gelman of Strange thingswho recently visited Israel and performed on Eretz Nehederet), will probably invite guests without warning.
Cleo, who works as a department store model, also keeps the books for a shady gangster business, while her husband unsuccessfully tries to support the family as a stand-up comedian. Both women participate in community events, with Cleo giving an impromptu speech at an event hosted by Maryland’s first black female senator, raising eyebrows at her crime-related employers, including Shell (Wood Harris, better known as Avon Barksdale on Thread).
Meanwhile, Milton invited a prominent television journalist, Wallace White (Charlie Hofheimer, who played Peggy’s radical Jewish boyfriend Abe in Mad Men). But the dinner doesn’t go well, mainly because Maddie is distracted by the disappearance of a Jewish child, Tessie Durst (Bianca Belle).
Tessie is a sensitive child who grabs a book about marine life at the Thanksgiving parade and wanders into a fish market, hoping to find a seahorse, only to disappear. Tessie’s father, Allen (David Corenswet who appeared in This city belongs to us), was Maddie’s date to the high school prom, and in later years he became more religious, while his mother is a painter whom Maddy admired. Maddy interviewed Allen’s mother for the school newspaper and dreamed of becoming a journalist, dreams she put on hold when she got married.
That’s a lot of plot for a six-episode series, and I’m leaving out a few plot threads here. Portman lights up the screen, as she always does, even if she seems miscast as a housewife lamenting her boring life. Her delicate beauty and intensity seem to make her stand out.
Some of the dialogue about her wasted potential seems like something out of a 1970s feminist manifesto, and Portman’s talent can’t make it any more interesting. “Why does everyone act like there’s something wrong with me because I care?” she tells her husband. “All of Baltimore is looking for her and I’m the meshugena? … I’ve served you for 20 years and you think I’m only good for being a housewife.”
Milton replies, “You never wanted to be anything else,” to which she replies, “I never tried to be anything else! Have you ever wondered why?” and breaks a dish.
The series, narrated by Cleo from the grave, follows Maddie returning to her teenage dreams of journalism as she attempts to solve the mystery of Cleo’s murder, which draws her into the dangerous underworld Cleo worked in; the final episodes are filled with Maddy’s trippy nightmares. Cleo often speaks presciently of her connection to Maddy, saying, “The end of my story was the beginning of yours” and “You wanted to tell everyone’s story but your own.”
In scenes reminiscent of her high school years, Portman seems more at ease, recalling a quote from the late New Yorker Film critic Pauline Kael said Sissy Spacek was more believable as a teenager in Coal Miner’s Daughter that when she was playing an adult: “When she was supposed to be a grown woman, she looked like a child dressed in her mother’s clothes and wig.”
Portman is in her forties, but she looks so young that it’s actually surprising when she refers to herself as an “old lady.”
The series is at its best when it recreates the atmosphere of mid-1960s Baltimore, particularly in the African-American community. It’s a disturbing mix of David Simon’s gritty stories about Baltimore crime, such as Thread And This city belongs to usand a feminist True Detectivea mix that can be confusing. But the strong performances of Portman, Ingram (who appeared in The Queen’s Gambit and that of Joel Coen The tragedy of Macbeth), and a superb supporting cast keep things entertaining.
Season three of The bear coming to Disney+
THE THIRD season of The bear arrived on Disney+ in Israel yesterday, and for those who loved the first two seasons, especially the second, it’s not a moment too soon. The bear It’s the story of Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), a perfectionist master chef who returns to Chicago to take over the family sandwich shop after the suicide of his brother Michael (Jon Bernthal).
Eventually, Carmy decides to turn the sandwich shop into a gourmet restaurant. He’s aided in his quest by a host of crazy and wonderful characters, including star Ayo Edibiri as Sydney, another highly talented chef from a tough background who’s drawn to the discipline and pace of a restaurant kitchen. Cooking allows him, like Carmy, to flourish creatively, coming up with innovative and delicious dishes.
While previous seasons of The bear We are talking about running a restaurant the way The Sopranos The show was about gangsters. Basically, the main plot was just a way to tell the story of a dysfunctional family and the trauma of growing up with a mentally ill, narcissistic parent. Finally, in the first few episodes of season 3, the show actually starts to talk about the restaurant.
Carmy decides that the menu must be completely different every day, an impractical, expensive and labor-intensive rule. He has long fantasy sequences in which some of the famous chefs he has worked with, such as Daniel Boulud, make appearances.
But it finds its original rhythm in describing the psychological challenges of the characters, and we learn more about the story of Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) and how Michael helped save her life when she was at her lowest, and about Gary (Corey Hendrix), a former Triple-A baseball player who is now a waiter.
Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Carmy’s self-centered mother, and an episode in which Carmy’s sister Natalie (Abby Elliot) gives birth and reaches out to her is the emotional high point of the season and a true recreation of the terrors of childbirth.
I would have liked to see more of Ebra (Edwin Lee Gibson), the arthritis-ridden chef who is a Somali refugee and veteran of horrific wars. I hope he gets his own episode in Season 4. But you can expect The Bear cast to pick up plenty more Emmys this season.