The dystopian anthology returns with five new episodes scripted by its creator, Charlie Brooker. Still some crazy ideas but writing too often on autopilot. And no more feeling of vertigo… Isn’t it time to let Black Mirror rest in peace?
Joan is horrible ★☆☆☆☆
Directed by Ally Pankiw, starring Annie Murphy
Brilliant concept: an ordinary woman, Joan (Annie Murphy), discovers on her way home from work that the Streamberry platform – a parody of Netflix – adapts her daily life in the form of a series, Joan is horrible, where Salma Hayek plays her role. All his intimacy is revealed to the general public, from his text messages to his ex to his sessions with the shrink. A meta charge against Netflix, where Charlie Brooker questions the will of streamers to produce streams whatever the cost, as well as writing by artificial intelligence. It should be punk and irreverent, but after the surprise, the episode goes in circles and becomes terribly generic. Holy mess.
Loch Henry ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Sam Miller, with Samuel Blenkin
While thinking of making a nature documentary, a young couple discovers that a small Scottish village has been traumatized by a serial killer who kidnapped passing tourists to torture them in his cellar. They then decide to change the subject and make a documentary. true crime much more seller… A Black Mirror small vintage but not uninteresting on our very gloomy relationship to criminal stories and the way Netflix has standardized the imagery to make its butter. But as in Joan is horribleBrooker can’t help but stretch and fan his twist before the hour, without necessarily finding the acidity of the first seasons.
my heart for life ★★★☆☆
Directed by John Crowley, starring Aaron Paul
In an alternative version of the year 1969, two astronauts on a mission for six years in the depths of space have at their disposal a machine allowing them to upload their consciousness on Earth, in robotic clones imitating their bodies to perfection. Despite the extreme physical distance, they can therefore maintain a balance between family life and work. Until the day when everything goes off the rails for one of them… As in any good episode of Black Mirror, technology and human drama intertwine and exist on the same plane. Real short film (it lasts 1h20), my heart for life also owes a lot to the impeccable performances of its cast (Aaron Paul, Josh Harnett and Kate Mara).
Mazey Day ★☆☆☆☆
Directed by Uta Briesewitz, with Zazie Beetz
Charlie Brooker makes his Night Call failed. The story of a fragile Hollywood starlet, Mazey Day, who disappears overnight after a hit-and-run, stoking the lusts of all Los Angeles paparazzi. Including Bo (Zazi Beetz), tabloid photographer who had sworn to hang up on this scavenger job, but can’t afford to miss out on the $30,000 reward for a Mazey Day shot… Funny of episode, rough-hewn, whose characters are barely sketched. It goes all over the place, nothing really works and the resolution, bordering on the absurd, makes you think of what Tales from the Crypt has produced more troublesome.
Demon 79 ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Toby Haynes, with Paapa Essiedu
In the North of England, in 1979, Nida (Anjana Vasan), a humble shoe saleswoman of Indian origin not at all the type to show off, reluctantly summons an entity (Paapa Essiedu, hilarious) who tells her that she must commit terrible misdeeds to prevent a cataclysmic event… We won’t say more. A bloody and funny horror comedy to talk about ordinary racism and female emancipation, all against the backdrop of the possible end of the world. Rather well seen, despite a completely unreasonable duration – one of the recurring problems of this season 6 – which serves the episode and prevents it from fully taking off.
