'Baby Reindeer' review: You're in for a wild ride into the bruised places of the heart
A stalker walks into a London pub and makes life hell for a bartender who offers her tea and sympathy. Big mistake. After 41,000 emails, hundreds of tweets and 350 hours of voicemails, the barkeep -- she calls him "baby reindeer" after her cuddly childhood toy -- runs for his life.
What do you do with such trauma? If you're Richard Gadd, 35, a struggling Scottish stand-up comic in his 20s in 2015 when he says he was stalked, you create a one-man show -- with illustrative props -- starring a semi-fictionalized version of yourself who you call Donny Dunn.
"Baby Reindeer" is now a must-see, top-rated Netflix phenom, with new viewers joining every day to examine each of its seven half-hour episodes with the forensic focus of a crime scene, which it definitely is. Fun? Sure. But so dark you'll choke on every laugh.
Why does Donny wait months to report Martha (Jessica Gunning in an unnerving, unforgettable performance), his frumpy, middle-aged harasser? Is he flattered by the attention of this alleged lawyer, with a prison stint for stalking, even when Martha dangerously confronts his parents and attacks therapist Teri, his trans girlfriend (a superb Nava Mau)?
It's a compulsively riveting tour de force from Gadd whose earlier solo show, "Monkey See Monkey Do," is also incorporated into the series, drawn from Gadd's account of being groomed, drugged and sexually assaulted by an older TV writer. The fictionalized Darrien O'Connor (Tom Goodman-Hill) pretends to be his mentor and assaults Donny. Episode 4 details that abuse, and it's enough to give you nightmares.
"Why did I freeze?" Donny asks in voiceover. "Why did I just let it happen?"
Why indeed? It's the attempt to go in depth on the nature of Donny's trauma that separates "Baby Reindeer" from crass tabloid exploitation. Gadd is as hard on himself as he is on his predators. What kind of shame makes Donny a glutton for such verbal and physical abuse?
The answers are as chilling as they are illuminating. We learn that, after breaking up with an earlier girlfriend, Keeley (Shalom Brune-Franklin), Donny moved in with her mother Liz (Nina Sosanya), to create a cocoon for his obsessions about bi-sexuality and his blinkered future.
When Donny makes his victimhood part of his stand-up act, the effect is shattering, prodding Martha to show up and heckle him mercilessly. In this series about unhinged behavior, the empathetic Donny always looks inside himself to find the roots of his own self loathing.
"Baby Reindeer" grabs you and won't let go. Questions keep nagging at you. There were times watching "Baby Reindeer" when I cringed so hard I wanted to cover my eyes. But stay alert, people, and you're in for a wild ride into the bruised places of the heart.
While the show describes itself as a "true story" in the opening, it adds in the credits, "This program is based on real events: however certain characters, names, incidents, locations, and dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes."
So much for the amateur sleuthing going on to find the real Martha and Darrien. "That was never the point," Gadd has said. But gossips will gossip, clouding the core of truth that makes "Baby Reindeer" such a twisted spellbinder. Emmy voters take note; this is one of the best and most audaciously original series of the year, the kind you never forget.
