Full Circle, on Canal +: what is Steven Soderbergh’s new series worth?
The director of Traffic tells the story of a kidnapping against a backdrop of postcolonial bad conscience. A thriller that starts off feverish but ends up going in circles.
The Steven Soderbergh Annual is a series. Full Circle arrives on Canal + slightly delayed in the United States, a few months after its broadcast on HBO Max. This six-episode thriller was written by Ed Solomon, who had already imagined the succulent thriller for Soderbergh No Sudden Moveas well as the puzzle series mosaicwhich could be followed either linearly, on HBO, or via a dedicated app, where the viewer was invited to wander through a narrative maze.
The taste for ramifications, for sophisticated plot entanglements, is also at the heart of Full Circlewhich was also originally supposed to be a “bimedia” series, like mosaic, before Soderbergh and Solomon balked at the scale of the task and ultimately opted for a more classic format. Armored in the credits of well-known names (Claire Danes, Zazie Beetz, Timothy Olyphant, CCH Pounder, Dennis Quaid…), Full Circle borrows its argument from a classic by Akira Kurosawa, Between heaven and hell (1963), itself adapted from a book by Ed McBain: in New York, a teenager is kidnapped, a ransom demand is sent to his wealthy parents living in a luxurious apartment on 5th Avenue, but they end up by realizing that the kidnapper had the wrong victim and kidnapped another child, coming from a much less financially well-off family…
From there, Solomon and Soderbergh unravel a plot that will involve a mafia clan from Guyana, a strange story of a curse that this lousy kidnapping was supposed to put an end to, nasty family secrets, a pinch of occultism… L The sprawling plot aims to deliver a panoramic vision of society – the “full circle” of the title – which suits the complexion of the director of Traffic and which intends to question the guilt of the wealthy and the moral repercussions of American economic imperialism.
Very serious subjects, therefore, but which Steven Soderbergh intends to treat in an alert, lively, on-the-go style, à la Sidney Lumet. In the first two episodes, which put the puzzle in place and which culminate during a night of anxiety in Washington Square, the filmmaker brilliantly transcribes a dangerous, oppressive nocturnal New York atmosphere, and communicates very well the fever, the fear and the urgency that inhabits the characters. The series unfortunately struggles to maintain this intensity throughout its six hours, with many of its twists ending up feeling like filler.
The style favored here by Soderbergh, very close to that of mosaic (handheld camera, long takes offering a lot of freedom to the actors), if it works well in moments of suspense, is diluted by monotonous conversations behind closed doors, all treated in the same way, and which end up giving a astonishing feeling of improvisation. Sometimes, in front of certain scenes, we believe we are watching rehearsals, or a theatrical workshop captured by a camera. embedded – as if the filmmaker was making a documentary about his actors researching their characters. Sensation increased by the fact that all the stars invited here do not seem to be playing the same score – Zazie Beetz regularly breaks the atmosphere of a suffocating police drama by playing it cool and ironic, as if she were in Out of reach. The sense of urgency that Soderbergh seeks to capture ends up backfiring and giving the impression that he is in a great hurry to move on to the next take. It must be said that man has a schedule to respect. He has just presented a new film, Presence, at Sundance. The next, Black Bagis already on fire. Full Circle, for him, it’s already ancient history. A series (too) quickly packed.
Full Circlecreated by Ed Solomon, directed by Steven Soderbergh, with Zazie Beetz, Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant… On Canal +.
