Elliot's Watching Week of 10-3-21: 2 HBO dramas

 Elliot’s Watching week of  10-3-2: Two HBO dramas

Monday: Finished watching HBO series The White Lotus -about the super-rich on week’s vacation on privately owned Hawaiian island and during which, actually from the outset, we despise all of the main characters, incredibly spoiled and self-centered people so loathsome we almost gave up on this series - though it turned out to be quite good, both in production values (the Hawaiian/contemporary score particularly good), acting (how ca you not like Connie Briten, this time in an unsympathetic role), and writing - especially the well-done scenes in which the three main groups of guests each work through their own issues and relationships. Series begins with a knife in the throat: There’s one body, apparently murder victim, being taken off the island - but who is it? And this keeps us guessing and analyzing and thinking right to the end. Good! Though there are some loose ends and improbable elements  that I won’t divulge. Worth watching, and discussing - despite the noxious personalities on display. 

The French documentary Laetitia, on HBO, is sad and engrossing and all the more so in that it’s a docu-drama based on a distressing murder case on the Atlantic coast in Fr. We see right off that one of twin sisters adopted by a strictly disciplined family is killed, and in short order we learn who most likely killed her, but there are many distressing elements to the story that come to light painfully and gradually, notably issues of child abuse and neglect and the failure of the French social service and, to a less extent, the legal and police community - despite the efforts of 3 heroic people - failed to recognize abuse in process and to protect the two likable girls from harm. Though the ending is slightly upbeat, we certainly see how the surviving twin has had her life thrown into disorder and we don’t expect her later years will be the end of her trauma.