Before, when a television series had a more feminine profile, the tendency of traditional critics was to recognize its success circumstantially, out of obligation, and then look for any excuse to undervalue it or, in the worst case, despise it and bury it.
Desperate Housewives, as happened before with Ally McBeal or Sex and the City, was a victim of this trend, despite claiming boomer mothers, whether they were housewives or working women, with an acidity and humor that, when they worked, They were perfection. A perfection, furthermore, recognized by a massive public.
The injustice surrounding Marc Cherry’s desperate phenomenon makes a premiere like Palm Royale especially sweet, now that the series is about to celebrate its twentieth anniversary (it will be on October 3).
In its DNA is the influence of the girls from Wisteria Lane without falling into copying and repetition, which is precisely what Cherry did in her later career (there are the minors Maids and Wicked and Why Women Kill to prove it).
Palm Royale is a comedy with dramatic elements in the development of the plots but that requires the actresses to fully exploit their comedic vision. He moves in an environment of well-positioned people without apologizing for it. She is interested in the lives of women who accepted the traditional family and contributed to the consolidation of the model, without losing sight of the extent to which they can be victims of the system or have the right to decide for themselves. And, with a pizpireta rhythm, he develops a murky sense of humor, between the candid and the corrosive.
The story begins with Maxine (Kristen Wiig), who settles in Palm Beach in 1969 with one goal: to fit into high society even though, to achieve this, she has to sneak into the tennis club by jumping over the fence and wearing the expensive clothes she has bought. borrowed from an elderly millionaire in a coma (Carol Burnett).
She’s desperate for approval from the agenda-setting ladies, Evelyn (Allison Janney) and Dinah (Leslie Bibb), and unplannedly befriends the local feminists, Linda (Laura Dern) and Virginia (Amber Chardae Robinson), who are scandalized by Maxine’s conservative principles although they help her because of the belief that women should support each other.
With impeccable artistic direction, which knows how to recreate a unique environment, time and climate (and which a few years ago would have been unthinkable for a production with this profile), creator Abe Sylvia presents a series with personality.
She feels comfortable with her anti-heroine protagonist, a full-fledged comic vision, a priori light plots and a consciously contradictory discourse. It is exhilarating to see how the fascination with the upper-class lifestyle, perpetuated by a Maxine who legitimizes the uptight ladies of Palm Royale, clashes with any notion of social justice.
Perhaps, between cocktails, viperous comments and the delirious protagonist, the series at times finds itself in no man’s land because it is not designed as a sitcom and at the same time it does not fully understand where the plots are heading.
But how can you not give it a vote of confidence and enjoy it with that costume, that props and that light, with a second wave of feminism as a contrast to its conservative premise, and with a brilliant leading actress. The way in which Kristen Wiig uses the body for comedy and manages to humanize it through eccentricity (especially a character who, when she opens her mouth, can be aberrant) must be studied.
Apple TV’s effort to have three of the best comedy actresses on the roster should be applauded, considering the equally outstanding work of Rose Byrne in Platonic and Maya Rudolph in the minor Loot, who headlined Bridesmaids with Wiig.
