To Leslie, Paul T. Goldman, and Pedro Pascal

Downward spirals and rabbit holes, plus a celebration of everyone's current zaddy

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Feb 7

Hello!

On this week’s episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss To Leslie and Paul T. Goldman, a film and a series about people trapped by their own demons.

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03:37 To Leslie, available VOD, is a familiar narrative that’s elevated by an Oscar-worthy performance.

After last week’s discussion about the controversy surrounding Andrea Riseborough’s Oscar nomination, we had to check out the actual goods. The conclusion? She acted the hell out of this role, coaxing out the full dimensions of a complicated character — someone who is both vulnerable and steely, manipulative and magnetic, troubling and vivacious. It’s a performance that adds sparkle to what could have been an otherwise average (and even slightly underdeveloped), if emotionally touching, film.

19:38 Paul T. Goldman, streaming on Peacock, is as painstakingly and skillfully crafted as it is completely wild.

How to describe this series? As Pelin put it, it’s a true-crime docu-satire that includes dramatic reenactments and so much more. In the same strange family as The Rehearsal (previously discussed on CID here), Paul T. Goldman is, above all, a chronicle of delusion — how delusion is fomented, how it twists and grows and devours all measure of sense, and the wreckage that it leaves in its wake. Delusion is both resilient and fragile, like a stubborn little weed that needs whacking over and over again. It’s a fascinating subject, one that is simultaneously unsettling and comical and kind of icky.