Pieces of Her Review: Toni Collette’s Talent Deserves More Than Netflix’s Latest Slow-Fire Thriller

In History of violenceViggo Mortensen turned out not to be small town man Everyone, including his wife and children, thinks he is, but a former assassin whose old acquaintances are unfinished business.

If, as Christopher Brooker claims, there are only seven basic plots from which every story has ever been written, then the plot about an ordinary person who seems to live an extraordinary double life seems to be re-created. every few years.

It is reused, significantly less efficient than any of the examples above, in the eight-part miniseries. Pieces of her (Netflix, now streaming), a horror film based on the stubborn Karin Slaughter novels succumbing to fire.

Bella Heathcote plays Andy (Andrea), who, blindly, lives with no purpose, returns under the roof of her mother Laura (Toni Collette) to a small southern town after living in New York. Lots of sporadic and annoying flashbacks spanning the first three episodes – all I could manage in one sitting before the dullness unfolded – suggested Andy go home to take care of Laura while she She underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Andy works for the local police force as a civilian dispatcher. She sends 911 alerts and is tired of annoying callers. Although she is not a police officer, she must wear a uniform. On her 30th birthday, she and Laura were in a diner when a frenzied young gunman opened fire, killing several customers.

When the shooter targeted Andy, mistaking her for a real cop, Laura intervened and easily disarmed him. He stabbed her with a knife through her left hand, but she took another knife with her right hand and slit his throat with the expertise of a previous killer.

Video of the day

One customer recorded the entire incident with their phone camera. Video goes viral. Laura’s name and face were all over the TV news, and the media flocked to her lawn, eager to speak to this everyday hometown here.

Laura, who was apparently a spy in her previous life, knows that her cover has been opened wide and her enemies will be after her.

At the signal, a bearded, bullet-headed assassin appeared and tried to suffocate her with a plastic bag. This time, Andy was the one to the rescue, using a blunt instrument to hit the attacker on the head. Laura guides the bewildered Andy as far as possible. She gave her a key, a phone burner, directions to a storage unit in Maine and told her to trust no one and go into hiding until she contacted her.

When Andy got to the lock, she found a car. There was a gun in the glovebox and a suitcase full of cash and Laura’s fake ID hidden in the trunk.

You may wonder why a seasoned spy won’t just run away with Andy, to protect her, instead of pushing her into the dangerous world alone. But logic is not the strong point here.

Andy, meanwhile, does a pretty lousy job of putting low. Despite seeing sinister-looking guys stalking her, she hangs out in a bar, where a customer recognizes her from a shooting video and convinces a handsome former soldier who can also is a bad guy, teaches her how to shoot a gun.

You can skip a lot of this if Pieces of her is good, funny, but it is not. That is a hindrance. The opening episodes are only 45 minutes long (the longer the better), but there’s plenty of padding, including scenes interspersed with Andy driving along dark, lonely streets.

Just when it looks like it’s about to gain some momentum, there’s another speed-killing flashback or some more harrowing whine about truth and lies.

Collete is still viewable as usual; However, she deserves better than this.

If you want to see a powerful, complex popular novel turned into cracked screen entertainment, check out Amazon Prime’s Reaper to replace.