M Night Shyamalan's The Servant review: This supernatural thriller is filled with plenty twists
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You know where you aren’t with M Night Shyamalan.
The director of The Sixth Sense (and various other illogical nightmares) likes to unsettle to the extent that his new TV thriller plays out like a cheese dream in which the point of view changes at the end of every 30-minute episode.
Possibly it’s unfair to credit Shyamalan with this, as the series is created and written by Tony Basgallop, who made Hotel Babylon and wrote Inside Men, as well as writing episodes of Berlin Station and late-period 24. But Shyamalan’s name is above the title, so we must follow the money.
The thing is, suspense. Servant has almost nothing else. It depends for its impact on the willingness of its audience to accept its persistent unreality.
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Think about plausibility and the whole thing crumbles. Apply the logic of repressed horror and everything unfolds as it should. Or shouldn’t.
One minor spoiler. It won’t ruin the first 20 minutes entirely, because those scenes are so crammed with ominous portent that you half-expect a hand to reach through the screen, Repulsion-style, and slap your credulous face with a vacuum-packed haddock. (More seafood references later.)
What is occurring? A couple is hiring a nanny. They are Sean (Toby Kebbell) and Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose). Sean is a freelance masterchef who makes mad food at home in his enviable kitchen. An enviable kitchen is a staple of psycho-TV.
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It means the residents of the house are idealised middle-class people, which is shorthand for total bastards. Sean’s magic kitchen has a vintage Gaggia machine which only he is allowed to touch (the Masterchef equivalent of placing a loaded revolver underneath the pillow).
“I’m a professional bon vivant,” says Sean. “Which means I feed butter and cream to fat people.”
Dorothy is a news anchor, which means she goes out to work in a semi-glamorous patronising fashion with no regard for the hellfires of home. In one symbolic news report, she climbs into the sewer and hacks at a fatberg.
Oh, that spoiler... The unhappy couple are hiring a nanny to look after their non-existent baby. The infant Jericho is a doll, designed to help Dorothy get over the grief of losing their actual son. However, the new nanny, Leanne (Nell Tiger Free), hired without background checks, treats it as if it is real until suddenly...
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Well, you can guess. But don’t ponder for too long, because Shyamalan and Basgallop keep the surprises coming, sometimes with spurts of dialogue. For instance, Sean yelps when he gets a splinter in his foot.
“You know,” says Dorothy, “there are men out there who like to be spanked and caned”. Instead of playful sadism, this nightmare couple enjoy pained dinners, sometimes with Dorothy’s unusually accented brother Julian (Rupert Grint), where the soundtrack of Matt Monro signals deep unease.
The question is, who is mad? Also: who isn’t? It’s all very calm, except when it isn’t. Those bits involve seafood. When you see the eel, be very afraid.
New episodes of Servant season one drop on Apple TV+ every Friday.
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