The Sinner

The Sinner is a procedural. But unlike most others that are obsessed with the “who,” this gets at the “why.” Talk about intriguing.

The Sinner proceeds according to its own internal logic, and while I would quibble with the presentation of one or two bits of information in the first couple of episodes, there are no moments that feel egregiously contrived or unfair to the audience.

For this to work requires a strong actor playing Cora, and Biel (who also executive produces) delivers.

It all adds up to a drama that's strikingly filmed, gratifyingly smarter than it needs to be and--better still in an era of bloated episode counts--snappily paced. The Sinner has the zip of a good detective yarn.

Some of the beats are a little too broad--the flashbacks feel particularly like devices instead of the realism of the present-day material--but there’s so much to like here that any missteps are quickly forgotten.

The Sinner directs all of its artistic energy toward the viewer’s empathy, which is a tricky place to be. Deglamorized and grief-stricken, Biel is immediately convincing as both a victim, of sorts, and a possibly psychotic murderer. A viewer can’t help but wonder where it goes from here.

Biel is excellent as Cora--her facial expressions resonate with tortured emotions--and she’s ably supported by Abbott as the bewildered Mason. ... The opening episode of The Sinner features lots of blood and some requisite (tame) nudity; if you can get past that, it promises an eventful ride over the next eight weeks.

Pullman and Biel are solidly in charge of their pivotal roles in a drama where “close-ended” presumably means a firm conclusion and no Season Two. So at an economical eight episodes, all this gloom and doom at least has the benefit of also being foreseeably finite. Expect your tolerance to be tested, though, particularly in the first half of Episode One. But if I were you, I’d proceed.

There’s just enough intrigue in the set-up--and in Biel’s moving central performance--to justify finding out why this regular person did something so irregular.

It’s a show that resonates on the surface more than in any deeper well of mental thought, but there’s something effortlessly salacious and shocking about it that totally lives up to the likely page-turning nature of its source material.

Whatever its faults, The Sinner does present a puzzle; it has a certain gravitational pull. One wants to see it through, or at least find the point where one no longer wishes to. And Biel is really very good.

USA provided only the first three episodes, so we can’t be sure. But they’re sufficiently intriguing and stylish to make the wait worthwhile, as long as you accept the possibility of disappointment when all the secrets are revealed.

It's premature to conclude whether the show will rise to that level, or have enough twists to sustain itself until the end. Strictly in terms of drawing you into Cora's story, though, The Sinner has the makings of a winner.

Whatever one feels about the story being told, the discomfiting mood established before a single line of dialogue is uttered is unquestionable. ... The overall quality of the performance [by Biel] will depend on what shadings The Sinner gives her to play, but it's a good start.

The Sinner does have a nicely lyrical visual style: It’s shot with a keen eye for detail, with an appropriately gloomy, unsettling musical score. But strangely, the more we learn about Cora’s complicated past, the less interesting her story becomes. The answers we do get are either too pat--the flashbacks to her childhood, with a young Cora being tormented by her fanatically religious mother, are painfully overwrought-- or they’re simply erased by the latest plot twists.

The premise and psychology of the main characters capture your interest. But the oppressive portentousness squanders it--the heavy-handed slo-mo and symbolism, the glum gravitas of the acting. Biel’s intense performance of despair isn’t helped by a story that keeps Cora a cipher or by clipped scenes that don’t let her stretch and breathe.

The series depicts the realities of living with trauma most honestly when it leans toward attributing Cora's behavior to a culmination of physical and psychological suffering. But when The Sinner turns to the investigation and the courtroom, its shifty execution only serves to demonize Cora and reaffirm harmful stereotypes of mental illness as source of irrationality and violence.

What’s left is an amiable and largely engaging murder mystery, gorgeously lensed and smartly paced but more notable for its control of mood and atmosphere than substance or character.

The Sinner is at once intriguing and frustrating.

There is merit to The Sinner, but it remains to be seen if the story will find a way to transcend its hokier elements to tell a larger story about mental illness or post-traumatic survival. Hopefully at some point the show will also explain who the titular sinner is supposed to be.

A serviceable mystery isn’t quite enough to sustain a series. The Sinner has the opportunity, in its remaining episodes, to show more than violence breeding violence. Otherwise, we might be able to live without knowing the answers.