Keith reviews this book turned Apple TV+ series starring Natalie Portman.
The Movies & A Meal Podcast
TV Talk: Lady In the Lake
(upbeat music) Hi, folks. Today we're with a TV episode of "Mooz and the Meal" and the podcast where we talk about movies and earthings while we eat. And I'm gonna take a look at the Apple Plus limited series Lady and the Lake. This just came to its very big finish. Baltimore, on the baseball field, month's cream, is thriving now as it always should be. While the Oreos are up and down, but firmly in contention still for a post-season run, the Seminole series homicide. Great, even though it's sadly stripped of a lot of its music for legal issues, is finally streaming on the Peacock. And it was as I was enjoying all over again the still engrossing first series of homicide that I thankfully stumbled upon the limited series Lady and the Lake, which is absorbingly all about Baltimore and its own thankfully unique way. And in fact, I really wasn't ready for the power of this series based on the 2019 novel by Laura Lipman. But after that intro, what is Lady and the Lake all about? And why should you watch it? The answers to the second part of that question are many, but no two things going in. The novel, which I haven't read, deals with two real life murders that occurred in 1960s Baltimore, of Lipman's childhood. And from that, tells the almost always riveting story of two women whose lives couldn't be more different, but increasingly intertwined. And also know that you couldn't have too many actresses to play those characters in Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram. Really not spoiling too much here to say that the murders, or at least that we think are murders, of all the sexual assault and death of a young Jewish girl. And also by the end of the first episode, Ingram's Cleo. If you give him this conceit and go along with it, you'll be rewarded with this series that takes a lot of chances that almost always pay off. As we meet Portman's Maddie Schwartz, her marriage is falling apart. And to get as far away from it as she can, she moves from her upper middle-class Jewish neighborhood to Sandtown, which as anyone who knows Baltimore knows, might as well be another planet. It can be hard to watch as she moves awkwardly among the almost entirely black residents of her new neighborhood and looks down on them with disdain even as she lives among them. Portman, to her credit, embraces this difficult part with full spirit. Even better, trust me, is Ingram, who I've been a fan of ever since the Queen's Gambit. She gives Cleo, struggling to keep her own family intact as she keeps the books for Black Baltimore's Numbers King, plain to the nod to the wire universe by Wood Harris. All that defines the role needs, while still also delivering the hunting, almost chilling narration that drives this series. To tell you much more would be a crime in my part, so just know that as Maddie pursues a career in journalism, their stories become more and more tethered together in ways that constantly surprise. And full credit to director Amal Harrell, who pushed for this to be filled and involved in more end after a pretty pedestrian first episode, isn't afraid to embrace the outer sides of this story and just keeps up in the ante. While never dropping the two intertwined threads, they keep this enthralling from the start. Without it all revealing how they unfold, the last two episodes of this series just might be the best one to punch of, any show you'll see this year. The first one from Maddie's perspective and the finale, clearly the eyes of Cleo. It's been a year for directors to try and embrace twists, but Harrell truly pulls one off here from the mind of Lipman, and it's a joy to watch. Late in the lake just wrapped up August 23rd with this finale, so it's the perfect time to binge it, and I would recommend devouring it as quickly as you can. So that's it for this week. As always, you can reach us at Movies and Emile, og@gmail.com, at Movies and Emile on X slash Twitter, and think of some listenin' on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or I'll be findin' your podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)