TOM TANGNEY

‘Top of the Lake’ more than just another crime story

Mar 19, 2013, 7:27 AM | Updated: 1:54 pm

...

“Top of the Lake” opens with the striking scene of a girl riding her bike through the woods, stopping to take off her jacket, and then calmly and methodically walking into a lake, right up to her shoulders still dressed in her school uniform.

It turns out Tui, the 12-year-old girl in the lake, is pregnant. She’s taken down to the police station where a visiting detective who specializes in sexual assault questions her, and asks her who did this to her.

Tui writes down a cryptic note to the detective and thus the first of a number of mysteries arise in the seven-hour miniseries “Top of the Lake,” set in the gorgeous landscape of rural New Zealand.

It’s a prestige project. Although made for TV, the entire series was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews. It’s written and directed by Jane Campion, the award-winning director of “The Piano” and reunites her with her Oscar winning star of “The Piano,” Holly Hunter. But the real buzz is around Elisabeth Moss who is best known for her breakout performance on Mad Men where she plays the mousey but ambitious Peggy Olson. In “Top of the Lake,” she’s a no-nonsense detective who’s quite comfortable around guns and men who underestimate her.

The series pits the outsider detective Robin Griffin (Moss’ character) against practically the entire small town, male-dominated community. The character is reminiscent of both Helen Mirren in “Prime Suspect” and Mireille Enos in “The Killing” – female detectives in a man’s world.

Griffin’s primary foil is a a kind of rustic crime lord, Matt Mitchum. Tui happens to be his daughter and he doesn’t appreciate cops sniffing around his heavily barricaded property.

As the mystery surrounding his daughter deepens (Tui goes missing after the first episode,) Mitchum finds himself in conflict with a group of displaced women from abused marriages and other painful backgrounds, who pitch camp on land dubbed Paradise without his permission.

Although secondary to the actual mystery being investigated, this gender conflict, this quiet battle between men and women, both its light side and dark side, is really what propels this series. And all the characters, from major to minor, are inevitably drawn into this cultural tug-of war. Differing worldviews make the world go-round and keep “Top of the Lake” from becoming just another crime story.

“Top of the Lake” airs Monday nights at 10 p.m. on the Sundance Channel.

Tom Tangney

Belfast...

Tom Tangney

Kenneth Branagh’s ‘Belfast’ is a crowd-pleaser that doesn’t quite hit the mark

"Belfast" has plenty to recommend itself but it's not nearly the moving testament to fraught times that Kenneth Branagh thinks it is or wants it to be.

2 years ago

Eternals, Marvel...

Tom Tangney

‘Eternals’ has to do a lot of heavy lifting for a single film

Imagine the daunting task Marvel sets for itself in "Eternals." It has to introduce 10 new superheroes, not to mention an entirely new cosmology.

2 years ago

French Dispatch...

Tom Tangney

‘The French Dispatch’ is unmistakably Andersonian

Wes Anderson is an acquired taste. But luckily, after 10 full-length movies, most critics and many movie-goers have acquired it.

2 years ago

Dune...

Tom Tangney

All set-up and no payoff: ‘Dune’ is world’s longest and most expensive trailer

It's hard to find the right metaphor for the new "Dune" movie. Whatever comparison you choose, it must reflect a sense of incompletion.

2 years ago

Last Duel...

Tom Tangney

Poor Marguerite’s story saves ‘The Last Duel’

Tom Tangney says, ultimately, The Last Duel is a proto-feminist take on the Middle Ages with Marguerite's take that brings the film into focus.

2 years ago

James Bond...

Tom Tangney

Daniel Craig’s final James Bond movie comes full-circle

The 25th installment in the James Bond movie franchise may be titled "No Time to Die," but "Too Much Time to Die" may be more fitting.

3 years ago

‘Top of the Lake’ more than just another crime story