The Thing About Pam, 2022
Pam (Renee Zellweger) drives her terminally-ill friend Betsy home one night. Later that night, Betsy's husband Russ (Glenn Fleshler) finds her brutally killed in their home. The local police decide that this is a slam-dunk case, and newly-elected DA Askey (Judy Greer) sees this as a case that will solidify her political position in the town. But when St. Louis lawyer Joel Schwartz (Josh Duhamel) arrives to defend Russ, a number of strange details and inconsistencies come to light, many of them seeming to center on Pam.
Okay, so this is not a movie, it is a 6-episode mini-series, but I watched it all in one go (as a snowy last day of Spring Break final hurrah) and so I'm reviewing it like one.
Zellweger definitely dominates as Pam, a woman who lies so compulsively and with such conviction that she manages to string others along way past the point of credulity. Pam is a fascinating mix of someone who sees herself as selfless and kind, yet at the same time won't hesitate to drop life insurance intended for two children into her own checking account.
The first two or three episodes really focus on the way that the investigation is moved in exactly one direction almost from the get-go. The police and DA ruthlessly mock Russ's frantic 911 call, never seem to even consider the possibility that he is innocent, and fail to follow up on what seem like basic elements of the investigation such as confirming that someone received a phone call at the time it was alleged. Once things move to trial, it gets even worse. Duhamel's main job during the first half of the miniseries is to simply be baffled and outraged at the absurd shenanigans and small-town nonsense that takes place, including being told he cannot mention the inconsistencies in Pam's testimony and a last minute bizarro closing argument from Askey in which she declares that the multiple witnesses who saw Russ around town at the time of the murder were actually engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to give him an alibi.
The second half of the miniseries follows Pam in the wake of the trial, as her notoriety begins to get under her skin. The more press the case gets, the harder it is for Pam to control the narrative. You get the sense that she wouldn't care, except that it does start to impact her real estate house flipping sideline. Ever determined to be in control, Pam takes more and more extreme steps that only further damage her reputation and threaten to expose some ugly truths. Things eventually culminate in an act that is breathtaking in its cruelty and boldness.
The series is shot in a deliberately dark comedy, out there style. We frequently get sequences that hyperbolically reenact Pam's version of events (and in a really nice touch, her makeup and hair are always much more on point in these sequences). It is real life tragedy and absurdity taken to an even more extreme place.
As with any "based on a true story" piece of media, I often had to wonder about the accuracy of what was on screen. Yes, every episode is prefaced by a disclaimer that characters, dialogue, events, and so on were changed for dramatic effect. Still, in the sense of the bigger story this is a true event that happened. Many of the details are pulled directly from the real events. I almost wish they'd just stuck to the truth, which is plenty absurd on its own. (That said, some outlandish parts were apparently real, such as a police interview discussion about buying knives at the Dollar Store or Pam stopping a cross-examination with WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA . . . WHOA WHOA WHOA! WHOA!).
Great performances and a story that is astonishing in its details.