There are, generally speaking, two types of biopics. First, there are those that seek to affirm the myth of their subject. (A handful of recent examples: Elvis; King Richard; Being the Ricardos.) On the other side, we have those that look to deconstruct that myth. (Blonde; Spencer; Priscilla.) Archie, ITV’s new serialised biopic of Cary Grant, throws its chips purposefully into the latter category. This isn’t the Cary Grant fans know and love. He doesn’t even sound like the Cary Grant they know. But in tearing down one image, the show never manages to construct a convincing alternative.
The series begins with a voiceover, as Jason Isaacs’ Archie – short for the star’s real name Archibald Leach – explains, in a plummy British tenor, that “Cary Grant” is simply a character he’s spent his whole career inhabiting. The real Archie, far from the effortlessly debonair leading man of films such as His Girl Friday, An Affair to Remember and North by Northwest, is lonely and insecure. “I made up the perfect man in order to survive,” he says.
