There's a certain brand of fantasy that throws everything at the wall – mythical creatures, steampunk aesthetics, a convoluted murder mystery – and hopes something sticks. "Carnival Row," Amazon's ambitious foray into neo-noir fantasy, unfortunately, falls squarely into this trap. It's a show that desperately wants to say something profound about prejudice, class, and the immigrant experience, but trips over its own elaborate mythology in the process.
Let's start with the faeries. Or, more specifically, with Cara Delevingne's Vignette Stonemoss, a faerie refugee seeking sanctuary in the human city of Burgue. Delevingne, with her trademark brows and ethereal beauty, certainly looks the part. Her wings, intricately designed and digitally rendered, are a technical marvel. But there's a hollowness to Vignette, a lack of depth that even Delevingne's committed performance can't quite mask. She's less a fully realized character and more a collection of tropes – the feisty rebel, the heartbroken lover, the fierce protector – stitched together with the thinnest of threads.
And then there's the world itself. Burgue, with its gaslight streets and gothic architecture, feels like a Victorian London ripped from the pages of a particularly derivative fantasy novel. It's visually striking, sure, but also strangely sterile. The show throws around terms like "Critch" (creatures) and "Burgueish" with abandon, but the world-building feels more like an exercise in checklist fantasy than a lived-in reality. I couldn't help but think of a conversation I had with a set designer years ago. "The trick," he said, "is to make the audience forget they're looking at a set." "Carnival Row," with its overwrought design and clunky exposition, never quite manages that feat.
The show's central metaphor – magical beings as stand-ins for marginalized communities – isn't exactly subtle. We see faeries forced into menial labor, their wings clipped as a form of subjugation. We hear whispers of "Critch" ghettos and witness the simmering resentment of the human population. It's all a bit on the nose, lacking the nuance and complexity that would elevate it beyond a simplistic allegory.
And yet, there are moments when "Carnival Row" flickers to life. Orlando Bloom, as the weary inspector Rycroft Philostrate, brings a brooding intensity to his role. His character, a war veteran haunted by his past, offers a more nuanced exploration of prejudice and trauma. The scenes between Bloom and Delevingne, while weighed down by the show's often clunky dialogue, hint at a genuine chemistry. There's a palpable yearning between them, a shared sense of displacement that transcends the show's more heavy-handed metaphors.
But these moments are fleeting, quickly overshadowed by the show's broader flaws. The murder mystery, which should be the backbone of the narrative, feels convoluted and predictable. The supporting characters, despite the best efforts of a talented cast, are relegated to archetypes. The political intrigue, meant to add another layer of complexity, comes across as both confusing and dull.
Ultimately, "Carnival Row" is a show that's more interested in spectacle than substance. It's a visual feast, no doubt, with its elaborate costumes, impressive special effects, and brooding atmosphere. But it's a feast lacking flavor, a collection of borrowed elements that never quite cohere into a satisfying whole. It's a shame, really. There's a kernel of a good idea here, a story about prejudice and otherness that could have resonated in our current cultural climate. But like the faerie dust that litters its streets, "Carnival Row" ultimately proves fleeting and insubstantial.
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