Here at The Playlist, we called “Top of the Lake” director Jane Campion the fourth most exciting TV auteur working today, saying: “[Campion’s] meticulous approach to television feels like she has found a way to use the medium to its fullest: in the best way, ‘Top Of The Lake’ season 1 felt cinematic, in terms of its visuals but also its sense of atmosphere and place.” It’s safe to say that we’re eagerly anticipating the show’s sophomore season premiere this September.
“Top of the Lake” Season 1 centered on Detective Robin Griffin, played by “Mad Men” and “The Handmaid’s Tale”’s Elisabeth Moss, investigating the rape and subsequent disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl in a small New Zealand town. Season 2, titled “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” picks up about four years after the events of the first season, and sees Nicole Kidman, Liv Hewson (“Santa Clarita Diet,” “Before I Fall,”) and Gwendoline Christie (“Game of Thrones”) joining the already phenomenal cast. Jane Campion returns to co-direct with collaborator Gerald Lee. Here’s the official synopsis for “Top of the Lake: China Girl”:
READ MORE: Wild First Trailer For Palm d’Or Winner ‘The Square’ Starring Elisabeth Moss
“Top of the Lake: China Girl” is a crime mystery story that finds Detective Robin Griffin, recently returned to Sydney and trying to rebuild her life. When the body of an Asian girl washes up on Bondi Beach, there appears little hope of finding the killer, until Robin realizes that “China Girl” didn’t die alone. Robin’s search to discover “China Girl’s” identity takes her into the city’s criminal underbelly and closer than she could have imagined to the secrets of her own heart.
While there’s certainly a whole heckuva lot of auteurist TV to sift through these days, we recommend making a point of catching up on “Top of the Lake” prior to the second season premiere on SundanceTV on September 10th.
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Have to say, I’ve been watching this on the BBC in the UK and it’s… well, it’s not great. It starts OK but by episodes 4 and 5 it just feels like a mess. It feels haphazardly edited, as thought they’re trying to salvage some vestige of a coherent story in post, while keeping all the plot threads going, but the overall effect is mystifying, and disorienting (and not in a good way. In a shout at the TV frustrating way). Characters and relationships develop in jerky, almost incomprehensible leaps and bounds (particularly the Gwendoline Christie character, and her relationship with Elizabeth Moss’s character), and it’s hard to understand where any of them are internally, or why they’re behaving in the strange ways they do. Case in point is the relationship between the adoptive parents of Elizabeth Moss’s birth daughter (one of whom is played by Nicole Kidman, who is the best thing about the show, but not actually in it that much), and the daughter herself. It’s just bizarre – the only explanation is that the plot demands they behave in this fashion, otherwise the whole story would be over by the end of episode one. They’re supposed to be self-involved (I think), but their general behavior towards their daughter, who they supposedly love, is quite simply inexplicable. And I’m all for strong female characters but every male character in this show is either a sex-crazed psychopath or an emotionally undeveloped man-child, or quite simply just a f*cking idiot. One does not have to be at the expense of the other. The mystery itself isn’t much of one, but the detectives sure make it feel like one – the knots they get themselves into reaching the so called ‘revelations’ are almost confusing because the plot itself is so simple. And the plot gets increasingly muddled as contrivances pile up and insert themselves into the story (again, involving the Gwendoline Christie character especially) to make it all, I suppose, ‘thematically’ relevant. Worst of all for me is the blithe treatment of the deeper themes around IVF and adoption, which feel thinly researched and at the service of the plot, rather than a starting point for the story itself, which is really what things of this emotional resonance should be. I remember season one as being slightly off the wall, and rather singular in that sense, and so I was prepared to cut this season some slack at the start, but the dip in quality going forward is incredibly disappointing.
I saw this movie on this site https://solarmovie.tube/