Colin Farrell stars as a detective in AppleTV’s latest drama series, in what is his first role since The Banshees Of Inisherrin for which he earned an Oscar nomination. The eight-episode drama series is created by Mark Protosevich and directed by Fernando Meirelles and Adam Arkin. The synopsis says, “The story follows John Sugar, an American private investigator on the heels of the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Siegel, the beloved granddaughter of legendary Hollywood producer Jonathan Siegel.”
The makers did get a big star like Farrell to lead the show, but the rest of the cast that includes Amy Ryan, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Dennis Boutsikaris, James Cromwell, Syndey Chandler and Anna Gunn, isn’t as exciting. On the face of it, this show seems like a pretty straightforward detective story that focuses on a missing person case. But I can assure you that the central mystery is just the tip of the iceberg. We get introduced to John Sugar and his abilities right in the beginning as he finds a missing boy. He is clever, calm, and very convincing as the dapper and dashing detective.
Protosevich, who wrote most of the episodes decided to use Sugar’s inner voice to narrate the story. We constantly hear every thought going through his mind and it is used as an anchor to drive the storytelling. The voice-over doesn’t take long to get used to and rarely distracts, but over the course of the season, it was not a consistently effective choice. The series sets up its world relatively early on but it constantly keeps on expanding itself with more and more subplots. The episodes do not necessarily end on cliffhangers but the themes keep evolving. It starts off as a story about loss but becomes a story about redemption, violence, and justice among other things.
One of the most odd filmmaking decisions here is its editing. Strangely it is the show’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness. Mierelles switches back and forth between two settings at the same time to explain what is going on and there are places where it works brilliantly. But it is unfortunately overused throughout the show which makes it irritating at times. Another issue with the teleplay is its pace. The narrative is very slow and gets lost in bringing back Sugar’s internal voice over and over. You know it’s a problem when a show with just 30-35min long episodes feels “slow”.
Colin Farrell is unsurprisingly one of the very few saving graces here. He very clearly gives his best in every scene and makes you feel the pain and struggle that his character is going through, despite being very good at his job. He commands your attention, at least until the point when the big reveal comes just over halfway through the season. The genre-bending twist is ambitious, to say the least, but will struggle to excite too many viewers. That said, the twist is not the show’s biggest problem by any stretch. It pushes boundaries and is unapologetic in its delivery.
Strangely, the big reveal that will make most people nervous about what this show is trying to do, brings much-needed new energy to it. Once you get on board with it, you feel the stakes and the sudden intensity of the story. The latter episodes of the story are probably the best, even though they have very little to do with the central mystery. At times I felt that the show would have been about that particular plot thread rather than trying to be a classic detective story.
The show also pays homage to cinema in many ways. It incorporates actual scenes from old movies in what feels like an attempt to make it stylistically richer, which it does more often than not. The narrative also offers a lot of commentary on Hollywood and the people who run it, as Sugar is a film buff himself. It is at its most compelling when the narrative dives into the deeper issues of cinema and when it explores important existential issues after the big reveal. I wish it was thought-provoking and captivating more often.
Sugar is an audacious and trippy noir drama led by a unique aesthetic and a commanding performance by Colin Farrell. It fearlessly takes big swings with its story and combines multiple genres including noir, mystery, drama, and sci-fi. The big twist will probably be divisive, to say the least, but if you can get on board with it, it has enough to compel you with its themes and characters and also sets up a very promising second season.
Sugar premieres on AppleTV+ on April 5 with its first 2 episodes.
