Worth: $14.00
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Cast:
Chloë Grace Moretz, Jack Reynor, T’Nia Miller, Gary Carr, Louis Hertham
Intro:
Fans of Westworld, Gibson’s work and the Divergent trilogy will find plenty to chew on in this action techno-noir.
Having picked up Michael Crichton’s Westworld and expanded its lore into a whopping four seasons for HBO, Executive Producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have turned their sights on more literary endeavours. This time with help from screenwriter Scott Smith (A Simple Plan).
Taking the lead as showrunner, Smith has adapted William Gibson’s novel, The Peripheral into an eight-part season for Prime Video.
Considered the pioneer of cyberpunk, Gibson’s work has been adapted before. First in Robert Longo’s Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and then Abel Ferrara’s New Rose Hotel (1998). Neither were met with initial acclaim but have been revalued as the years have rolled on. So, where does that leave us with The Peripheral? Well, it’s a mixed bag.
The year is 2030 and Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) lives in small town, rural America with her brother Burton (Jack Reynor, Midsommar) and their ailing mother. With Flynne working at a less than busy 3D printer and Burton suffering from the implants given to him during his time in the Marines, money is exceptionally low for mum’s medication. To make ends meet, the siblings’ extra income comes from playing VR simulations, through sharing the same avatar and helping high paying customers beat challenging levels. They’re basically the personification of the Konami Code.
When Burton is asked to beta test a new sim, the more talented Flynne hooks up to assess its capabilities. It soon becomes apparent that the sim is more than what it seems and soon her life is in danger by a shady conglomerate known as the Research Institute, under the leadership of Cherise (T’Nia Miller).
Meanwhile, Londoner Wilf (Gary Carr, The Deuce) reaches out to Flynne from 70 years in the future to help him track down his adopted sister whose disappearance may be connected to the Institute. How, you ask? Well, it’s just a simple application of robots and time travelling. Or Quantum Tunnelling as it’s referred to in The Peripheral.
The above leads to one of the issues with the series that is both a blessing and a curse. Unlike, say, Rian Johnson’s Looper which info dumped at the start from a great height, The Peripheral is happy to stop for a breather when it drops a new bit of technological Nadsat for you to digest. All fine and dandy to a point. However, it does feel like The Peripheral’s pace slows down to explain the concept, only to have a character respond ‘I know what (insert term) is.’ After a while, you just want the show to let you figure things out for yourself.
Additionally, and perhaps because of how Flynne jumps between timelines, there’s never a real sense that anyone we meet lives a life offscreen. Characters feel like they’re ripped straight out of a Young Adult novel. That said, Louis Hertham (Westworld) as Corbitt, a drug dealer who lives in Flynne’s present, clearly appears to be enjoying himself stirring things up amongst the locals and gunning for our protagonist’s head.
Where it can’t be denied, The Peripheral’s strength is its visuals. Episode 1 is directed by Vincenzo Natali (In the Tall Grass, Cube) and his style sets the template for the rest of the series. There’s a beautiful contrast between the rundown, but populated environment of Flynne’s rural America and Wilf’s pristine but sparsely populated London. Not wanting to give too many spoilers, there’s a haunted quality to the city that vividly reminds you of the lockdowns that hit many a capital in the last two years.
Fans of Westworld, Gibson’s work and the Divergent trilogy will find plenty to chew on in this action techno-noir. However, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this is all just a demo of what The Peripheral could be rather than a fully immersive experience.