Shallow soap opera dialogue and an absolutely ludicrous plot twist about 2/3rds of the way through a six-episode season hold the admittedly talented ensemble of Netflix’s “Anatomy of a Scandal” back from creating anything that resembles realistic characters or genuine drama. And yet, this adaptation of the book by Sarah Vaughan can’t even commit to the kind of broad, goofy escapism that resulted in recent hits for the streamer like “Clickbait” or “Pieces of Her.” It’s caught in some numbingly dull valley between thinking it’s a high-brow commentary on privileged toxic masculinity and just leaning into the fact that it doesn’t give a damn about any of its characters and doesn’t really have anything to say that’s deeper than a puddle. With each passing episode, the show becomes increasingly unenjoyable to watch actors as talented as Michelle Dockery, Rupert Friend, and particularly Sienna Miller get stranded by cheap writing, thin characters, and choppy filmmaking tricks to try and hide the fact that there’s nothing worth learning in this anatomy lesson.
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The king of the modern adult mini-series, David E. Kelley, collaborates with a New York playwright named Melissa James Gibson on this six-episode series about a high-ranking British parliamentary minister named James Whitehouse (Friend), who comes home in the opening scenes of the premiere to tell his wife Sophie (Miller) that the papers are about to report that he’s been having an affair. He swears that this work mistress, Olivia Lytton (Naomi Scott), was the only time he’s cheated and that it’s over, but Sophie looks a little suspicious, sensing that there’s more to the story from the very beginning. Through flashbacks to his time at Oxford, where the two met, it’s revealed that James is the kind of privileged rich kid who has long taken what he wants from this world, willing to cover up anything to make himself or his friends look better. It’s a skill set that’s made him a powerful politician with the ear of the Prime Minister, but the skeletons are about to come tumbling out of his closet.
Of course, an extramarital affair isn’t enough for a mini-series, and the first episode ends with the revelation that Olivia is also accusing James of raping her after the end of their affair. A powerful prosecutor named Kate Woodcroft (Dockery) is taking on Olivia’s case, ready to take Whitehouse down for thinking he could rape his former lover. She points out how raping your wife wasn’t even considered illegal until 1991 in the U.K., and the case hinges on the parameters of a sexual encounter that happened after Sophie and James had called it off. She claims that James took what he wanted in an elevator at work; he claims that she initiated the entire event and never told him to stop. Who will the jury believe? And how long will Sophie stay by her husband’s side as she discovers more and more about his true nature?
The atrocious dialogue is bad enough, but the greatest sin of “Anatomy of a Scandal” is how much this show that should be about taking agency away from its male protagonist completely sidelines its central wife and victim characters, giving them almost nothing to do outside of how the male protagonist has derailed their lives. Dockery comes out of the whole thing relatively unscathed because she is just able enough to cut through the melodrama to make Woodcroft’s personal passion related to this case feel at least somewhat genuine. Miller isn’t so lucky. The deeply underrated actress gets totally lost in the material, never coming across as a fully realized human being as much as a plot device for her husband and the woman trying to put him in jail. (And don’t get me started on Naomi Scott’s victim, who is literally never seen outside of her testimony and flashbacks related to the crime.)
Friend, an underrated performer for years on “Homeland,” does his best, but he is hampered by writing that forces him to remain too much of a mystery as his past, and even the truth about the incident with Olivia remain shrouded in a way that gives him an inconsistent character. It feels like the show never really wants to take a stance on James and privileged monsters like him, allowing the mystery of his background to overwhelm any attempt at character. For example, an early scene sees him buying a puppy for his kids to apologize for the scandal, and it’s impossible to tell if this is supposed to come off as pathetic or kind.
One of the reasons for the non-characters is the shoddy, cheap direction by S.J. Clarkson, which bafflingly over-relies on incredibly choppy editing, canted angles, and fuzzy framing during intense flashback scenes. The weird thing is that the show occasionally shows signs of creativity, such as when Olivia’s testimony blurs with the flashbacks in a way that allows them to share the same physical space—for example, Olivia walks off the elevator that was the scene of the alleged crime in the flashback and back into the courtroom in present day. That’s a clever way to breathe life into a stale courtroom drama structure, but Clarkson never commits, dropping in creative flourishes only to return to the cheapest techniques in the book.
An incredibly abrupt and unearned ending awaits anyone patient enough to sit through all six episodes of this mini-series, another reminder perhaps that Kelley needs a strong, confident director to work out his worst tendencies as a writer (consider what Jean-Marc Vallee did to elevate “Big Little Lies”). The truth is that this one feels phoned in, like a contract that Kelley signed and then never really bothered to put in the work to flesh out these characters beyond the checklist of salacious plot twists from the source material. The true scandal is how lazy it all feels. [D]
