As an actress, Kristen Wiig never wears out her welcome. A delightfully eccentric comedian, she can also be much more subtle, delivering her lines with soft, unexpected notes. Think of the music a cat might make as it carefully steps along a piano keyboard. Through 10 episodes of Apple TV+ Palm Royalehowever, her performance only rises to a point and then stops, even as the show’s farcical melodrama spins ever wilder.
Any actress could have trouble performing PalmMaxine Simmons, a former contestant from Tennessee, is determined to conquer Palm Beach society in the late 1960s. Palm Beach is where her husband’s aunt Norma (Carol Burnett) ruled for decades—even though she was brought down by an embolism.
Late in the episode, Dinah (Leslie Bibb), one of Maxine’s many friends, turns on her and says, “I can’t tell if you’re a country bumpkin or the most ruthless woman in Palm Beach!” The show doesn’t seem to know either.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(1097x0:1099x2)/palm-royale-kristen-wiig-122223-3f50f70880bb4652a5d2a8bf54cf6bb1.jpg)
Kristen Wiig in “Palm Royale”.
Apple TV+
Kaia Gerber has the sweet support of mom Cindy, dad Rande, and brother Presley at Palm Royale Premiere
Maxine is somewhere in between Vanity Fair’caresses Becky Sharp and Scout, the innocent little storyteller To kill a mockingbird. It is not impossible to be both cunning and harmless – but can anyone from Succession fill the bill? Wiig can laugh at the sillier moments, some involving a beached whale, but she’s not given enough rope and a big enough harpoon to land on the character.
This applies to Palm overall. The production design is great, as if Pedro Almodóvar decided to share his pop color palette, and the cast is impeccable, but nothing here feels edgy, sophisticated, or just plain funny. Oh, for the ABC’s shallow satirical vivacity Housewives!
The strongest performance is Burnett’s as the aunt, an absolutely horrible schemer who spends most of the play slowly regaining consciousness. Burnett plays Norma with unrelenting toughness — even when she’s in a coma — and, miraculously, projects the slapstick of her old CBS comedy show. Other standouts include Allison Janney, who looks like the retro-chic spirit of Susan Hayward in Valley of the dolls, as Evelyn, Maxine’s rival for control of the annual Beach Ball; Ricky Martin, manages to combine sexiness and moral decency as Robert, a kind of glorified pool boy; and Julia Duffy, still best known for Newhartas Mary, a wealthy, unstable widow who pursues Maxine for a promised charity donation.
Kristen Wiig says working with Carol Burnett made her a ‘better person’: ‘I just love her’
The story tries to connect Maxine’s misfortunes to the larger themes of the era – Vietnam, Nixon – but the attempt is weak. (You can see this kind of thing in the 1975 movie Shampoo.) Laura Dern is at least powerfully passionate as Linda, who wants the town to align with her progressive politics.
Palm it remains mystifyingly inert. It’s like watching inflatable rafts float across the surface of a pool, waiting for a tidal wave to push them forward. But that doesn’t happen in swimming pools.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Palm Royale premieres its first three episodes on Wednesday on Apple TV+, followed by new episodes every Wednesday until May 8.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education