We all know someone who has a little bit of Pam in them, and I don’t mean that as a slight to the real-life Pams of the world, as I’m saying this in a generic “Karen” kind of way. I’m talking about those people who on the surface always seem to be helping others and contributing to the greater good and maintaining a chipper personality and consider themselves to be pillars of the community — all of which may be true — and yet there’s something … irritating about those Pams. Something self-consumed and petty and gossipy and just plain unlikable.
That’s “The Thing About Pam,” in which Renée Zellweger delivers a big, juicy, wonderfully disruptive performance as a small-town busybody, real estate flipper, wife and mother — who is also a stone-cold killer. (That’s the difference between the “Pams” we know and this Pam. The former aren’t murderers. Probably.) The bizarre, true-life story of Pamela Hupp has been the subject of five “Dateline” episodes and a popular podcast, and now comes this fictionalized limited series, which takes a darkly comedic approach to the material and maintains an almost breezy approach to some seriously macabre events.
