Too Close Brings a Feminist Slant to the Crime Drama Genre
In the new miniseries from AMC+, two women work to process emotional trauma left in the wake of a heinous crime.
Photo Courtesy of AMC+
In the new AMC+ original series Too Close, grief and motherhood are intrinsically linked. The captivating miniseries stars Emily Watson as Dr. Emily Robertson, a forensic psychologist tasked with determining if a patient’s post-traumatic amnesia is legitimate, or an excuse for the abhorrent crime she’s accused of committing. Too Close premiered in April in the UK, and all three episodes are now available exclusively on AMC+ in the United States.
Too Close, adapted from the novel of the same name by Natalie Daniels, is thrilling and emotionally rich. Denise Gough gives a fantastic performance as the acerbic Connie Mortensen, the “yummy mummy” at the center of the series. The first episode opens with Connie sobbing behind the wheel of her car as she drives through a torrential downpour. Two young girls sit in the back seat, buckled in and asleep. Connie is clearly distraught and panicking, and after glancing back at the girls one more time, drives her car off the edge of a bridge, plummeting into the choppy water below.
As the series unfolds over the course of three episodes, we slowly learn the tragic series of events that led Connie to her dramatic decision. We later see her as a fit, happy mother of two living in a posh neighborhood, but when Dr. Robertson and the audience are first introduced to her, Connie is mentally unstable, balding, and covered in graphic bruises and gashes. Anger and rage spew from her mouth. When she’s asked about driving her car off the bridge, Connie claims total amnesia. Vitriolic tabloid coverage of the case belittles the claims, and even Dr. Robertson’s husband believes she’s wasting her time with a liar who doesn’t deserve help.
But as Dr. Robertson says, we all deserve forgiveness. This core belief radiates from the extremely empathetic and understanding doctor, without letting Connie walk all over her. She doesn’t sugarcoat her strong feelings about Connie’s brash way of discussing the car crash, but understands more than anyone that trauma leads to irrational and undesirable behaviors. In a heartbreaking scene, Connie is showed an image of her bloodied daughter laying in a hospital bed following the crash. Her response is painful: she begins hysterically laughing. “She’s just playing!” she says to Dr. Robertson. “It’s just a game!” It’s in this moment that the weight of Connie’s illness, and how much work Dr. Robertson has ahead of her, is revealed.