A few weeks back, trailer editor Andrew Hegele got Film Twitter in a tizzy with his rundown of the great contemporary American filmmakers—and how long it’s been since they’ve made a contemporary movie. Spielberg, Tarantino, Scorsese, Guillermo del Toro, the two Andersons (Wes and Paul Thomas); name after name, cinematic genius after cinematic genius, all turning out period pieces which, at best, say something about the present by saying something about the past. Theories abound as to why—fear of social irrelevance, disinterest in portraying a COVID-infected reality—though many seemed to settle on the notion that no one wants to make movies dealing with our near-nonstop use of smartphones.
But one name was notably absent from this list. One could perhaps argue that Steven Soderbergh is no longer placed in the ranks of those upper-echelon filmmakers, though if that’s true (and it’s by no means a given), it seems to be primarily by his own choosing; since his self-imposed and ultimately temporary retirement in 2012, he’s taken on a deliberately low profile. While a Tarantino or a PTA focuses solely on a big theatrical release every few years, Soderbergh has directed television series (“The Knick” and “Mosaic”) and straight-to-streaming feature films such as “High Flying Bird,” “No Sudden Move,” and “KIMI.” Several of those would have been considered among the year’s best theatrical films had they received that particular release. But the filmmaker, frustrated by the increasingly impossible math of the mid-budget theatrical model, has found he can work more, work faster, and produce more efficiently within this paradigm, using cutting-edge digital tools (including occasionally filming on iPhones) and shooting and editing himself, under pseudonyms.
In doing so, he can make films and shows that are not only undoubtedly but thrillingly contemporary. “High Flying Bird” deals with the detailed logistics of big-money sports and hinges on the ways in which social media and “content creation” play into them. “KIMI” is the most contemporary of thrillers, directly incorporating the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftershocks, as well as the dark and even deadly ways in which we’re trading privacy for the conveniences of AI devices and smartphones. The thrilling third act of “KIMI” is particularly rooted in how our phones, and the vapor trails they leave, impede our abilities to appear and disappear; Soderbergh’s new miniseries “Full Circle” explores this chilling idea further. If filmmakers fear dating their pictures by getting lost in the silly specifics of how we live our lives on our phones, “Full Circle” offers up the alternate notion that those specifics can create new tools of tension. The tiny inciting event of the entire series is a lost iPhone, and Soderbergh similarly uses shared locations, caller IDs, and draining batteries as tools of suspense and exposition.
Of course, he’s not doing this alone. Soderbergh directs all six episodes of “Full Circle,” and all are written by the gifted Ed Solomon, who also penned Soderbergh’s underrated (and presently-set) previous HBO series “Mosaic,” as well as the period-set but nevertheless of-this-moment “No Sudden Move.” Several of the Soderbergh signatures are in place; it’s a crime story, or at least a story that uses crime and the tropes therein as an entry point, and it’s the kind of multi-level, multi-layered story Soderbergh navigates especially well, orchestrating various divergent yet intersecting races, classes, and social strata.
Initially, those strands couldn’t seem farther apart. We begin in Queens with the brutal murder and robbery of a key player in a war between immigrant crime families; “This is about something that happened a long, long time ago,” explains Mrs. Mahabir (CCH Pounder), who already has her plan for revenge in motion: a kidnapping, which will be carried out by fresh-off-the-boat Guyanese immigrants, under the supervision of Aked (Jharrel Jerome). Meanwhile, we meet celebrity “Chef Jeff” (Dennis Quaid), as well as his daughter Sam (Claire Danes) and son-in-law Derek (Timothy Olyphant), who are much more involved in the day-to-day operations of his empire. And then we meet Harmony (Zazie Beetz), an investigator with the Postal Inspection Service who is bucking for a big assignment and for her boss (Jim Gaffigan) to continue keeping her borderline personality disorder a secret.
The initial intersection, set-up, and pay-off are delicious; we think we’re witnessing the kidnapping of Sam and Derek’s son and carry on accordingly until Solomon and Soderbergh cleverly reveal what’s actually occurred. From there, it’s an expanding (yes) circle of reveals, twists, mistaken identities, and deceptions—“They’re all hiding shit!” Harmony exclaims early on and has no idea how correct she’ll be. The underlying theme of Solomon’s intelligent and often melancholy script is that everyone has secrets, and everyone thinks they’ve hidden them more adroitly than they have. But it all plays out with almost mathematical precision, as one old secret or slight gives way to another in a series of unravelings—while spinning out in a way that feels narratively honest. We’re always finding out more, but doing so alongside the characters, so while these people are often deliberately obfuscating, it never feels as though the filmmakers are, and that’s key.
The ace ensemble cast helps considerably in selling it. At this point in her career, Danes could play this kind of frazzled concern (veering into overt panic) in her sleep, but she doesn’t sleepwalk here. It’s a virtuoso performance, particularly in the final episode, when the sum total of everything folds together in one tense, harrowing, and ultimately moving moment. She has to sell that beat, and unsurprisingly, she does. Olyphant is also leaning into his existing skill set but never seeming to repeat himself, as the family man who’s watching his carefully constructed life falls into shambles. Pounder is menacing and terrifying; she might seem like an odd choice to play a crime boss going in, but she certainly doesn’t after.
Jerome, so unforgettable in “When They See Us,” cooks up a potent mixture of danger and desperation, while Gaffigan is genuinely effective as the weasely bureaucrat (and is first seen, in a nice little nod to his fans, eating a hot pocket). And Beetz comes off as a loose cannon—both the character and the actor, in the best possible way. Soderbergh also brings the heat with the supporting players, which include Alex Winter, William Sandler, and Danny Hoch as the worst wearing-a-wire guy imaginable.
As in the aforementioned “High Flying Bird” and the earlier “Girlfriend Experience,” Soderbergh shoots contemporary New York with admirable verisimilitude, equally at home (and in style) on the streets of Queens and the doorman buildings of the East Village. His camerawork occasionally veers into too-sloppy territory, but his editing is razor sharp, particularly a marvelous sequence in episode two that breathlessly intercuts the various colliding forces at a failed money drop with split-second intensity. He shows his customary skill for dramatizing quicksilver violence—it’s over before it starts, just like in real life—and the grace notes of the closing scenes pull a potentially messy destination into sharp focus.
Soderbergh’s decision to play the game by his own rules has undoubtedly led to something of an underrating of his considerable gifts; we take him for granted, even when he’s producing works as beautifully acted as “Let Them All Talk” or as old-school entertaining as “Magic Mike’s Last Dance.” But he’s clearly not doing it for kudos, or buzz, or awards, or to get rich. He’s building a body of work, and nearly alone amongst his peers, that work displays both a willingness to engage with the current moment, and a proficiency with the tools that allow him to do so. [B+]