Tom Holland thriller The Crowded Room is packed with distractions

The Crowded Room’s packed plot stretches reality for its star performer; the podcast twist is a reality check in Based on a True Story.

Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried are meticulous in the approach to their roles in A Crowded Room.

Tom Holland is a wonderfully talented performer. One just has to look at the actor’s 2018 turn on TV show Lip Sync Battle, where he performed a mashup of Singin’ in the Rain and Rhianna’s seminal hit, Umbrella, to see the kid has serious star quality. With his gyrating, dancing, perfect timing and stage presence combined, it was touted as his “magnum opus”. American entertainment news website Vulture wrote at the time: “More than his work as Spider-Man or any other projects he’s starred in, this is his defining moment … his contribution to culture.”

Holland told The Hollywood Reporter: “For all the movies that I’m incredibly proud of, the Lip Sync Battle is what I get the most compliments for.”

Unfortunately the compliments for his latest foray into features may be as short as that musical interlude a few years ago.

Holland stars in a new thriller series, The Crowded Room, and the show definitely does what it says on the label. While it’s early days, as the first episodes have just dropped online, the plot of the pilot has more packed into it than a Jetstar flight’s overhead carriage.

The Crowded Room has all the trappings of a blockbuster piece of prestige television that’ll have the critics salivating but, alas, the first look gives off more of a midday movie vibe with a bigger budget and bigger stars, including award-winner Amanda Seyfried.

The series is the creation of A Beautiful Mind screenwriter Akiva Goldsman but comes off looking like he had Dory from Finding Nemo in the writer’s room as the jumpcuts and flashbacks will unsettle an easily distracted audience (I mean, does anyone watch TV anymore without their phone, doing Wordle and the week’s online shopping order?)

One minute we’re in Rockefeller Centre in the late 1970s shooting at someone, the next we’re in the middle of the decade drawing our dead siblings in the courtyard of a suburban high school.

The series is a 10-parter so it’s got time to stretch its legs. However, due to it raising more questions than it answers, it’s hard to get into the real psychological thriller aspect of the show.

‘Eyes say more than the dialogue, at times’ … Amanda Seyfried as the interrogator, tired mum and “#girlboss” Rya Goodwin.

The Crowded Room tells the story of Danny Sullivan (Holland), a young man arrested after a botched shooting in New York in 1979. The character is loosely inspired by the true, controversial case of Billy Milligan – the first person in US history to be acquitted of a major crime due to dissociative identity disorder. During his trial, his lawyers pleaded insanity for a number of sexual assaults and robberies, arguing his alternate personalities were responsible for the crimes.

This version of events is told through a series of interviews with interrogator – tired mum and “#girlboss” Rya Goodwin (Seyfried) – where Danny reveals painful memories and elements of his past that have shaped him, including growing up in an abusive home (his mother is played by the luminous Emmy Rossum who is, hilariously, less than 10 years Holland’s senior) and the death of his twin brother.

Holland and Seyfried are incredible to watch. Both are meticulous in their approach to roles. “Full method” is a term that’s been bandied about when it comes to actors investing heavily in roles. Their eyes say more than the dialogue, at times.

Holland invested so much in this character, that the guy who made his mark, and millions, playing a superhero is now on extended hiatus.

“I disappeared. I went to Mexico for a week and had some time on a beach. And I’m now taking a year off, and that is a result of how difficult this show was,” Holland told Entertainment Weekly. “I’m no stranger to the physical aspects of the job doing the whole action-movie thing. But the mental aspect, it really beat me up, and it took a long time for me to recover afterwards, to sort of get back to reality.”

Speaking of reality, or lack thereof, Based on a True Story is a good quality dental floss for your brain this weekend. It’s a new Jason Bateman production plugged as a “comedic thriller”.

The fingerprints of the Ozark and Arrested Development star are all over this charming series which features Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina as a bored broke couple who are … boring. The plot twist comes when they – a duo also expecting a baby – blackmail a serial killer into doing a podcast so they can go viral and somehow become rich.

“It’s up to you. It’s either jail or you do a podcast with us,” is how a genuinely funny scene unfolds.

The series is about a real estate agent, a plumber and a former tennis star whose lives unexpectedly collide over a slow-close $4000 toilet which, in a weird turn of events, exposes our obsession with true crime and murder.

The witty writing keeps the show pacy but it doesn’t have the same magic as previous iterations such as Only Murders in the Building, which gently leaned in on imagining what would happen if podcast fans became hosts and then detectives.

Based on a True Story is Scream meets NCIS. There is a bit of gore, and there are scenes that’ll make you check if your door is locked before doing a home workout.

Both shows indicate the crime and thriller genres are a little lost.

As comedy and drama sharpen up and sweep awards seasons – see The White Lotus, Succession and The Diplomat – these genres are like a cinematic Eton mess.

Some of the “edgy and darker” projects are turning into podcasts, albeit ones without any structure, grit or natural conclusion.

The category needs to take the advice Jennifer Coolidge dished out during her outing at Vivid last week.

@stephameye

How to deal with self doubt, by the queen herself jennifercoolidge. #vividsydney#thewhitelotus#motivation#speech#funny#youlooklikethefourthofjuly

♬ original sound - Stephanie Youssef

“I think one of the best things to cure self-doubt is just to go to really bad stuff,” The White Lotus star said. “I’m talking about plays you hear about that are terrible – go to them. “There’s shows on television that are terrible – watch them.”

The Crowded Room is streaming now on Apple TV.

Based on a True Story is streaming now on Binge.