EARLIER this month at a film festival, a young audience member put up their hand after a screening and professed their love for the title to its director. The reason they loved the film was because its three separate storylines were neatly tied up at the end “like… with a pretty ribbon”. The filmmaker blushed before presenting a quick refresher on the many other directors who have previously “played with the anthology film format”. He also politely pointed out the possibility that perhaps not everyone is interested in these tidy resolutions, though he valued this audience member’s appreciation.
American film director Steven Soderbergh and writer Ed Solomon, the team behind the limited series Full Circle, most certainly aren’t. In a sense, they choose to tell the story — filled with possibility and pitfalls — quite quickly; it is simply the catalyst to work through the complications of the characters. But honestly, it is Soderbergh’s sensibilities that string us along for the rest of the series.
Here’s the rundown of the many stories within the Full Circle. Savitri Mahabir (CCH Pounder from FX’s The Shield) is a Guyanese insurance racketeer from Queens in New York. She’s hit the hard times. Her scheme of killing off the people covered by her insurance schemes clearly isn’t sustainable. She also believes herself and her family to be gripped by a curse and to remove it and repair the “broken circle” requires rituals. The main ingredient: kidnap Jared, the son of uptown New York couple Sam (Claire Danes) and Derek (Timothy Olyphant), and grandson of Jeffrey (Dennis Quaid) who is a food media sensation called Chef Jeff.
Not a complicated enough story, right? There’s Manny Broward (Jim Gaffigan) from the US Postal Inspection Service, who has been investigating Mahabir’s insurance killings. Then, there’s Melody Harmony (Zazie Beetz), a lesbian agent with mental health issues and the nose of a bloodhound, who doggedly investigates cases like she’s velcro. Her sweet name betrays her pest-like nature.
Back to the kidnapping: the next ingredient involves Mahabir’s lieutenant Garmen Harry (Phaldut Sharma) and nephew Aked (Jharrel Jerome) drawing many chalk circles in a park. And then, having the symbolic ransom figure of $314,150 (because it’s the numerical value of pi) to be dropped off in the park with the drawn circles. All of this is botched, no thanks to Aked’s fiancée Natalia (Adia), her teenage brother Louis (Gerald Jones) and his friend Xavier (Sheyi Cole), who have been brought in by Mahabir from Guyana to assist with this kidnapping. Their biggest mistake? They kidnap the wrong teen boy, who coincidentally has been stealing from the ‘real’ Jared, so they’re wearing the same red hoodies. If you can believe it, I still haven’t told you all of the convoluted connections between these culturally different characters.
If one were actually trying to follow the layered story of Full Circle, then one swings between Mahabir’s lieutenant Garmen complaining about knowing only a small part of the plan but never the big picture, and USPIS agent Melody who solely seems to be tasked with keeping the audience on track with the many motives and moving parts in these six episodes.
Full Circle delivers in spades and more in the other departments. Soderbergh brings a sombre, smokey and sinister sensibility to New York City making it intimate and familiar — or is that he renders it rather ordinary? This choice allows for the show’s star-studded cast to flex their acting chops. Danes and Olyphant are pitch perfect in depicting privilege being haunted by its past. Danes continues to shine and shows that she can single-handedly carry any series with a little help from her friends — she’s simply superb. Zazie Beetz is another cast member who consistently rises to the occasion, proving to be a worthy sparring partner to Danes in their scenes together. Plus, she has an enviable range as well.
Full Circle is juggling a lot of things: it is a crime thriller but also a surgical scrutiny of a snobbish family but also a cop show while also wanting to show the clash between cultures and commerce. So at times it misses the mark, but the framing and fundamentals that Soderbergh brings to this show are what make it immersive, intriguing.
