The best Australian drama in years, Fake surgically dissects a sham romance
Fake ★★★★½Paramount+
One of the best Australian dramas of the decade so far, Fake is an unflinching examination of deception’s cruel grip – whether it’s wielded by an imposter or delivered through our own flawed self-esteem. “Joe, 51, grazier” is the innocuous description on the dating app that journalist Birdie Bell (Asher Keddie) matches with, setting off a romance with Joe Burt (David Wenham) that increasingly pinballs between exhausting highs and lows. Over eight episodes it proves to be a harrowing, detailed journey.
Journalist Birdie Bell (Asher Keddie) matches with Joe Burt (David Wenham) in the eight-part thriller Fake.
This limited series is not just a thriller. Joe’s persona is always a little forced, his excuses too numerous to avoid suspicion. Something is off, which the narrative acknowledges, but that raises a more difficult question: is Birdie fooling herself? On the cusp of 50, a failed IVF program behind her, Birdie feels the pressure to find a partner. “Be realistic about what’s still out there” urges her terrifyingly passive-aggressive mother, Margeaux (Heather Mitchell), a widow who has raised her daughter on the idea of meeting “the one”.
Fake was “inspired” by the 2019 memoir of the same name by writer Stephanie Wood, a contributor to this masthead. In adapting it, creator Anya Beyersdorf – who announces herself as a major talent – keeps the scope of the book, captures the queasy dynamics, and tackles the sharper, underlying themes. Even as Joe spins a web for Birdie, bombarding her phone and lamenting his “crazy” ex-wife, you have to question not her judgment, but her willingness to believe. Ghosted and gaslighted, she’s still too nuanced to be the mere victim.
The casting uses our shared viewing history as a weapon against us: how could the pairing of Nina from Offspring and SeaChange’s Diver Dan be a bad thing? But the performances are exceptional on their own terms. Wenham provides a chalky charm, revealing a fabulist’s harsh narcissism, while Keddie takes Birdie to the edge of a precipice. Much of the fifth episode, a masterful construction, is Birdie melting down alone in the back seat of an Uber. She grasps her phone like a lifebuoy as Joe toys with her.
There have been plenty of shows with this sham-man theme, such as Netflix’s Dirty John. What elevates this one is the thoroughness of its depiction. On an emotional level it is forensic, and the direction – set up by Emma Freeman – accentuates the acutely felt unease. When Joe laughingly demonstrates heart massage on Birdie at a dinner, the sound mix adds the sound of a defibrillator jolting someone to life. It becomes a brutal, recurring cue. Fake is one gripping shock to the system after another.
My Lady Jane ★★★Amazon Prime
Told with broad, bolshie strokes – whether it’s signpost dialogue such as a mother telling a wayward daughter “you have no power”, or needle-dropping the signature riff of David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel – this alternate history gives a wild extended story to Lady Jane Grey (Emily Bader). In real life, she was a teenage queen of England for nine tumultuous days in 1553, but was then arrested and later beheaded. Here, she’s a witty, defiant heroine saving monarchs and navigating questionable but very handsome young men.
The source material is the 2017 young adult novel of the same name by Cynthia Hand, Brodie Ashton and Jodie Meadows. As with the text, the show’s creator, Gemma Burgess, has crafted a literal revisionist fantasy. There are magical folk who can transform into animals, such as Jane’s pal Susannah (Extraordinary’s Mairead Tyers), and a busy narrator with an arch tone that’s equal parts Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Gossip Girl.
It’s girl power with an “up yours” exuberance. The narrative blithely moves from one scrape to the next, with a backbone of veteran British actors in the supporting ranks: Jim Broadbent plays Jane’s pustular great-uncle and purse-strings-holder, Lord Leicester. The message is don’t play by the rules, but My Lady Jane has a few unwritten ones of its own. Some corset strings stay tightly bound.
Otto By OttoStan
Australian stage and screen legend Barry Otto.
A biography notable for its intimacy, this documentary by filmmaker Gracie Otto charts the life and work of her father Barry, one of the greats of Australian acting with a career on stage and screen that stretched over 50 years. “You have this instant desire to protect him,” recalls Cate Blanchett, who was onstage with Otto in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest in 1995, and like all the testimony here she’s heard in voiceover, set against a collage of archival material that leads from the past to the present. As a celebration it’s complete: sadness shades the highs.
Becoming Karl LagerfeldDisney+On the back of Cristobal Balenciaga, Disney+ has another haute couture period drama with this six-part series about the rise of German designer Karl Lagerfeld (Daniel Bruhl) in the Parisian fashion world of the 1970s. This is a younger Lagerfeld, before he was “Kaiser Karl” atop Chanel, and this French production covers his arrogance and ambition, along with his competition with Yves Saint-Laurent (Arnaud Valois) for design supremacy and the attention of writer Jacques de Bascher (Theodore Pellerin). The design is immersive, with Bruhl’s sterling performance adding depth to the narrative’s affection for its subject.
Men UpBritBox
The erectile dysfunction drug Viagra was obviously created in a lab, but the science gave way to something more human – but equally complex – when the first clinical trial took place at a hospital in Wales in 1994. With shades of The Full Monty, this feature-length British drama recounts, with a sincere tone and empathy for the men involved and their partners, how the little pill helped some, but not all, of the participants. It’s funny, and well aware of the puns readily on offer, but tenderness and honesty win out.
Remembering Gene WilderNetflix
There were several striking incarnations of Gene Wilder projected onto cinema screens: the absurdist with spurs in Blazing Saddles, the capricious chocolatier of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and the foil to Richard Pryor in comedies such as Stir Crazy. The actor behind those hit performances comes to the fore in this affectionate biography from director Ron Frank, which uses narration from the now-deceased actor and typically oversized storytelling from former collaborator Mel Brooks to reacquaint us with a major star who hasn’t become revered like many of his contemporaries.
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