Category: Directed by Antonio Campos

  • The Staircase (2022) s01e08 – America’s Sweetheart or: Time Over Time

    “The Staircase” finishes with some highs and lows. It’s got Odessa Young’s best acting in the series and some truly phenomenal work from Toni Collette. Young’s gets to be less problematic than Collette’s, as show creator, episode director, and credited writer Antonio Campos gives Collette a hackneyed final scene. It should be series-best work from…

  • The Staircase (2022) s01e07 – Seek and Ye Shall

    Okay, so Toni Collette’s work subplot and the bat infestation in the attic have gone unaddressed to this point because they figure into the eventual motive. One of the reasons I didn’t have any interest in “The Staircase” was Collette playing the victim; it meant all her acting would be for naught. Almost to the…

  • The Staircase (2022) s01e04 – Common Sense

    The episode begins in the near present with Colin Firth and presumably new wife Juliette Binoche headed off to court. “Staircase” isn’t ready to tell us what Firth’s up to in 2017, so the documentarians take Binoche aside for an interview on this momentous day. Throughout the episode, her monologuing for the interview about justice,…

  • The Staircase (2022) s01e03 – The Great Dissembler

    This episode’s mostly about Colin Firth’s sex life. Assistant district attorney Parker Posey’s determined to expose Firth as a practicing bisexual, pursuing past partners, and so on. But it’s not just Posey’s even too bigot-y for 2001 North Carolina investigation; the episode focuses on it from Firth’s perspective too. While wife Toni Collette is stressing…

  • The Staircase (2022) s01e02 – Chiroptera

    So the person who looks the most like Rosemarie DeWitt but can’t be Rosemarie DeWitt is Sophie Turner. I then thought Maria Dizzia was Rosemarie DeWitt, but no, also not Rosemarie DeWitt. This episode of “The Staircase” has opening titles, which the first episode did not, and they’re a who’s who of actors I hadn’t…

  • The Staircase (2022) s01e01 – 911

    I don't know anything about the actual "Staircase" case. My wife offered to tell me, and I said I'll wait until after the show; the only information I did get was the parents at the center of the story—Colin Firth and Toni Collette—adopted orphaned neighbor kids, which doesn't seem to matter yet. This episode quickly…