Dirty John

This series is cautionary escapism at its juiciest. [26 Nov - 9 Dec 2018, p.8]

Glossy and well-acted, its transfer from your daily commute’s most suspenseful listening stretch ever to serviceable wine-and-laundry-folding companion show feels, all in all, a smooth one.

Britton plays Debra as if some Botox seeped into her brain. Bana charms while simultaneously simmering.

Viewers accustomed to Connie Britton playing Teflon-strong characters on “Friday Night Lights” and “Nashville” may take a minute to adjust to her role as a soft-spoken, breathy interior designer who falls for a scam artist in Bravo’s pulpy, addictive “Dirty John.”

Dirty John doesn't hold any creative surprises for those familiar with the case, and it doesn't break any conventions amply established by, say, Investigation Discovery or Oxygen. That doesn't make it worthless, mind you. It has all the makings of a frivolous, ephemeral good time, a spiky bauble made to stand out among television's soft December offerings.

Dirty John is very entertaining, though it’s not without faults. It doesn’t dig very deep, or present Debra’s daughters as full characters (their main roles are to look confused or upset, which is a waste of big talent), and its storytelling can be a little convoluted. But it never claims to be high art.

The main problem with Dirty John, though -- both the character, and the series -- is that as structured here, his web of lies begin unraveling pretty quickly.

It’s not nearly as compelling, and its continual efforts to make the characters and situations more palatable grow wearying.

Director Jeffrey Reiner gives this a ‘90s soap patina that works--to a point. The intelligence that Britton and Bana provide gets shoved aside in favor of scenes that look like they couldn’t possibly be true (but are). When “Dirty John” begins to unravel, we lose interest and feel as duped as Debra.

It may be that there’s simply too little life and too much Lifetime in this eight-parter, based on the highly popular podcast by Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard and played out at a formulaic crawl.

Dirty John is little more than a fancy Lifetime movie. ... There is some pleasure in watching the inevitable unfold, particularly since the cast is solid. Britton is, as usual, a sympathetic lead, even if her character is written to be shallow. And, as her daughters, Juno Temple and Julia Garner are formidable. ... As with Debra, John is written as a flat bad guy whose deeper drives are inscrutable.

Some of the essential vitality and veracity of the material has been lost. In its place, I can't point to much insight or advantage added by the new medium.

This dramatization feels less like “The Jinx” or “Making a Murderer,” and more like a weird mix of Southern California lifestyle satire and a “Dateline” episode.

The people and places--from the penthouse apartment Debra initially shares with Veronica to the beachside house she impulsively rents to hole up with her new beau--are all there, but the show doesn’t dig any deeper.

There are so many opportunities to flesh out both John’s story and the complicated and tragic Newell family history, and so far, the show eschews them in order to keep plugging away at the story as once written.

Viewers might be suckered into wanting to know exactly who this guy is, but the vanilla, passive depiction of his primary victim dulls any empathy for her struggle to the point where your only motivation to continue is to see how dark this story might get.