TV Review: "Baby Reindeer" is a Haunting Mix of Tragedy and Comedy
The new Netflix series challenges to rethink what queer TV can really look like.
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I have to admit that I had no idea what to expect going into Baby Reindeer. I’d heard some general things about its plot and the general thrust of the story, because I’m terminally online, but that hadn’t really told me much about what the experience of watching the show would actually be like. What I most definitely did not expect was a series that is at once bleakly funny, achingly tragic, and brutally honest about how sexual trauma and stalking can completely derail a life, sending a person down a twisted, tortuous path that often ends in tragic self-destruction.
At the heart of the story is Richard Gadd’s Donny Dunn, a down-on-his-luck comedian working in London who strikes up a rather unusual friendship with Martha, a heavyset woman who claims to be a high-powered lawyer but is clearly a bit delusional and in need of some friendly companionship. Very soon, however, things take a darker, more sinister turn with Martha who, it turns out, is a convicted stalker, and she makes Donny her next victim.
As the series unfolds, it becomes clear that Donny is carrying around a lot more trauma than he initially let on. Among other things, he was groomed and sexually assaulted by a writer for a high-profile TV series, a series of events that profoundly distorted and damaged his psyche, leading him to not only engage in all kinds of risky behaviors but also inevitably shaped how he responded to Martha’s overtures. Indeed, Donny repeatedly remarks that he was (is?) as fascinated with her as she is with him and, as the series goes on, he makes numerous decisions that, far from getting her out of his life altogether, end up binding them more tightly together.
In one of the series’ most haunting and evocative episodes, Donny begins to flame out, and all of it–the trauma, the rape, his dark and tortured psyche–comes pouring out on the stage as he abandons his comedy routine for a confession to the audience, both those sitting in the venue and those of us sitting on our couches watching all of this unfold. I don’t know how to describe this whole sequence other than to say that it’s very much like watching someone tear themselves open right on the stage, bearing their heart and emotional viscera for everyone to see. It’s tremendously difficult to watch, but it’s also riveting. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen for the entire time that it was going on, afraid that I was going to miss some crucial detail, some movement of his face or his eyes that would give me another glimmer of insight into his mind and his soul.
Throughout this sequence, and throughout the series as a whole, uncomfortable tight closeups keep us intertwined with Donny and his emotional state of being. We’re far more than voyeurs of his psychological, sexual, and physical traumas; we’re bound up with them. Combined with Donny’s omnipresent voiceover, Baby Reindeer invites us into this world in all of its ugliness and its violence.
It’s not just the cinematography, however. It’s also in Gadd’s performance. There’s a certain gauntness to his face, as if all of his traumas and emotional torments have scorched their way from the inside out, leaving a ravaged visage behind. His eyes stare hauntingly out at us, asking us to understand him and not, I think, to always sympathize with him. When it comes right down to it he is, as so many of us are, a complicated person with more than his fair share of emotional baggage to deal with and navigate.
And then there’s Martha.
Martha is, I think, one of the most compelling, fascinating, and disturbing figures to have emerged on television this year. As a fat middle-aged woman she occupies a vexed and even abject position within the social hierarchy of both the show and the real world, and Donny openly states that one of the first things he felt for her when she walked into the pub was pity. Jessica Gunning excels at making her into more than that, however, and even when she begins her descent into stalking, and violence, we’re never allowed to lose sight of her fundamental humanity. Her messages to her “baby reindeer”—an appellation she bestows on Donny because he reminds her of the reindeer doll she had as a child—swing between extremes of touching and terrifying, but all of them show us a little bit of who she is. Or do they? Martha, like Donny, remains something of an enigma to the end, her radical openness as confounding as it is disturbing.
Baby Reindeer doesn’t offer us any simple moral solutions, and there are many times during the series when you just want to reach inside the screen and shake some good sense into Donny. The thing is, though, is that Donny himself is quite upfront about the fact that there were many stops during this sad, tragic, horribly humorous journey where he could have made different decisions, where he could have done something that would have kept it from going further. He is nothing if not aware of his own flaws and foibles,
What struck me most about watching the series was just seamlessly it weaves a strain of black comedy into its thriller ethos. In doing so, it highlights the comedy and the tragedy inherent in Donny’s situation. Donny–and Gadd, for that matter–are comedians, and they both have a keen eye for the absurd and the ridiculous. Their ability to find the humor in what is indisputably a horrifying situation is a major part of what makes Baby Reindeer such compelling and compulsive viewing.
I can honestly say that I’ve never seen any show quite like this one. It's the kind of show that sinks its claws into you and doesn’t let go, and it challenges you to think outside all of the normal rules that govern television–both in terms of LGBTQ+ representation and in terms of the moral binaries that so often circumscribe stories of trauma and survival. And, while it is certainly difficult to watch, it is not without its moments of joy. Though Donny often feels the desire to self-isolate, he is surrounded by those who love him, including his parents (who accept his bisexuality and his dating of a trans woman with nary a blink), his sometime-girlfriend Teri (a brilliant Nava Mau), and even his ex-girlfriend’s mother (Nina Sosanya, who seems to have made a career out of playing motherly roles).
In the end, Baby Reindeer, like its characters, eludes easy characterization. It’s queer, it’s troubling, it’s vital. Go and binge it!