Have we run out of good murders, then? That is the question begged by the latest addition to the thriving true-crime genre beloved of every streaming platform. Love & Death is a seven-part dramatisation of the story of 1980s Texas suburban housewife Candy Montgomery, who killed her friend and neighbour Betty Gore with 41 blows from an axe. She claimed self-defence and was, controversially, acquitted of murder. This recounting of the tale comes less than a year after the miniseries Candy on the same subject from Disney+. The latter starred Jessica Biel in the eponymous role and Melanie Lynskey as Betty. This time round, Candy is played by Elizabeth Olsen, taking a break from her superhero duties in the Marvel movies and WandaVision to go as naturalistic as it is possible to go (although she eschews the tight perm Biel sported to emulate the real Montgomery’s uber-80s aesthetic). Lily Rabe plays Betty.
Love & Death has been created and written by David E Kelley, the impresario behind such glossy hits as LA Law and Ally McBeal and, more recently, Big Little Lies. This is both good and bad news. On the one hand, Kelley attracts good casts, knows how to tell a story and likes to concentrate on women. On the other, he is better at form than substance. He doesn’t dig much beneath a story and he is not as good at writing women as I suspect he thinks he is. Olsen is absolutely mesmerising in the part, but it is despite, rather than because of, canny writing.
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