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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Sarah Dempster

The Madison review – Michelle Pfeiffer’s new drama is thuddingly simplistic

Michelle Pfeiffer, wearing a loose cardigan, holds a tin cup of coffee on the front porch and gazes thoughtfully into the middle distance
New York dolls … Michelle Pfeiffer and Beau Garrett in The Madison. Photograph: Emerson Miller/Paramount +/Paramount+

Preston Clyburn (Kurt Russell) is laughing at trout. “Hah-hah,” says the rugged retiree, up to his buttocks in river as a Yellowstone cutthroat sploshes obligingly into his net. “I’m keepin’ it, and you’re cookin’ it,” he barks at his younger brother, Paul, who would rather Preston release the hapless vertebrate back into the wild but nevertheless respects his sibling’s need to connect with his inner Cro-Magnon (“the love of fishin’ goes back to early man …”).

Paul is played by Matthew Fox, who was once in Lost but is now marooned in a drama that requires him to say things like: “I make a memory a day, brother … sometimes more.” Despite this, Paul, too, is laughing. “Heh,” he says, as he and Preston splash and frolic in their matching utility slacks. “Heheheh.”

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