A California Nightmare

Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story | Cast: Javier Bardem, Chloë Sevigny, Cooper Koch, Nicholas Chavez S| howrunner: Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan | English | Netflix

What is it about evil that is so compelling? What draws us to the worst instincts in human nature? What happens to us when we look into the dead eyes of a person who can kill without remorse? The Menendez brothers have long since been considered to be the embodiment of wickedness, charged with parricide, and imprisoned for life in 1996 after a very public trial. A wave of revisionism considers them to be the victims, the murder of their parents a consequence of the terrible verbal and sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of their father while their mother, a volatile alcoholic, looked the other way. And when you look into the eyes of Javier Bardem, who plays their father José, there is nothing there, no one home. José is the real monster, teaching his boys to lie, cheat and steal to win, and exploding into rage when they get caught. His boys, played by Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch, veer between being nasty bullies and blubbering messes. The Beverly Hills double murder in 1989 was one of the biggest stories of the late ’80s and early ’90s, a strange blood-soaked time which also saw OJ Simpson on trial for the murder of his former wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman. The series captures that era and its excesses, the fast cars, the drugs, the clothes, and the music. But it is Bardem’s face, always on the edge of implosion, that stays with you. He stands out in a series with some star turns from Nathan Lane as the chronicler Dominic Dunne and Chloë Sevigny as the cruel mother Kitty, whose life has little value for her boys. “All we did was put her out of her misery. Her life had no value,” says one of them.

Why watch it? No one does trashy, pulpy true crime dramas better than Ryan Murphy

A Quiet Romance

Love, Sitara | Cast: Sobhita Dhulipala, Rajeev Siddhartha | Director: Vandana Kataria | Hindi | Zee5

We all design our happiness ourselves, says our lovely heroine, Tara, played by the luminous Sobhita Dhulipala. She is playing an interior designer, so the comment is forgiven for being clichéd. Dhulipala plays a woman returning to her roots to get married to her on and off boyfriend, played by the highly underrated Rajeev Siddhartha. That gives us a tour of Kerala, where Dhulipala’s character lands at her grandmother’s home, where she reunites with her parents and her beloved air hostess aunt played by the lovely Sonali Kulkarni. There is heartbreak and healing, tradition and contemporary reality, and love and break-up. There is a photographer friend, a doctor who cures the underserved, and an affair that she was not aware of. The fresh faces in the cast, from actor-activist Sudhanva Deshpande to veteran actor B Jayashree, are a pleasure to behold. Vandana Kataria’s direction has a light touch which belies its depth.

Why watch it? It may not be a complete meal but it is a tasty amuse-bouche with a pleasurable pay-off

 

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