The US reboot of Laid is a vivacious farce with a few new kinks
Laid ★★★½
Binge
All credit to Marieke Hardy and Kirsty Fisher, who created the original Laid for the ABC 13 years ago. Their black comedy, about a young woman who discovers that all her former lovers are dying in strange circumstances, was such an inventive concept and sturdy platform that this American remake has no problem being a vivacious farce while bringing a few new kinks to the table. The Americans have no use for the phrase “dead root”, but the dual meaning remains applicable.
Zosia Mamet (left) and Stephanie Hsu in the American remake of Laid.Credit: James Dittiger/Peacock
New creators Nahnatchka Khan (Fresh off the Boat) and Sally Bradford McKenna (Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23) launch straight into the carnal chaos, as 33-year-old professional party planner Ruby (Stephanie Hsu) realises that she has a literal body count of former lovers, starting with a college boyfriend, quickly followed by another college ex on the ride home from the funeral. Ruby and her best friend and flatmate, AJ (Zosia Mamet), are shocked, distracted – they have fertile minds – and then rattled. Lists are soon compiled.
Laid could be a horror film, an amalgam of It Follows and the Final Destination franchise, but it uses blithe humour to create a mordant momentum. With Ruby and AJ’s daffy exchanges and historic score-keeping as the ice-breaker, it keeps disbelief suspended and cunningly reverses the grief so that Ruby can wonder if this is all a sign that she’ll never find the perfect man, despite going on enough dates to have PTSD. A hunky new client, Isaac (Tommy Martinez), is just added temptation.
“I am showing up and doing the work,” Ruby tells one of her disbelieving exes, but part of Laid’s appeal is that despite her mouthing self-improvement platitudes she might just be a horrible person. The storytelling knows how to profit from that. Given half a chance, Ruby and AJ, a true crime devotee who finally gets to make her own whiteboard, have delirious screwball exchanges that keep wandering into idiosyncratic diversions and questionable monikers. One former hook-up does not take kindly to merely being identified as “Green Day/Sum 41 T-shirt guy”.
Zosia Mamet as AJ, Michael Angarano as Richie, and Stephanie Hsu as Ruby in the US remake of Laid.Credit: James Dittiger/Peacock
The second Australian season of Laid got into some real metaphysical mayhem, but the American plotting leans into sex-positive but karmically negative detective work. “My vagina is killing people,” Ruby concedes, and Hsu is a dirtbag-adjacent delight in the role. The Everything Everywhere All at Once breakthrough star, teamed with Girls ever-present Mamet, has a way of taking patter a step too far, and then letting the implications sink in before changing course. A little filthy, quite frank – Laid kept making me laugh in unexpected ways.
Taron Egerton in Carry-On.Credit: Netflix
Carry-On ★★★
Netflix
A holiday season thriller set on December 24 at Los Angeles airport, Carry-On does everything a decent Hollywood genre movie should: concise on the plotting, tense when time gets tight, and a showcase for star Taron Egerton, who gets to clench his jaw, test his character’s moral depth, and run as if he’s a candidate for Tom Cruise’s crown. Is competency a compliment? It shouldn’t be, but Netflix’s original movies have been spotty this year.
Rocketman star Egerton plays Ethan Kopek, who mans a metal detector at the airport and is coasting through life, despite the encouragement of his pregnant girlfriend and airline staffer, Nora Parisi (Sofia Carson). When Ethan gets an unexpected shot on a baggage scanner he becomes the target of an anonymous interloper, played with quiet disdain by Jason Bateman, who tells him via earpiece that Nora will be killed unless he lets a suspicious bag through.
Sounding like a malicious career coach, Bateman’s operative coaxes and chides Ethan – just be your usual apathetic self. Naturally, Ethan can’t stomach potential harm to others, so he rebels. Spanish filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra, who specialised in 2010s Liam Neeson crime dramas, cleanly escalates the action, placing Carry-On in the lineage of previous LA transportation thrillers such as Speed and Collateral. Bonus points for choreographing a fight scene to Wham’s Last Christmas.
Patrick Gibson, left, as the young Dexter in Dexter: Original Sin.Credit: Paramount+
Dexter: Original Sin
Paramount+
Turns out there’s still blood – just a few drops – to be squeezed from everyone’s favourite vigilante serial killer. Set in 1991, this prequel stars Patrick Gibson (The OA) as a 20-year-old Dexter Morgan, newly interned as a forensics technician with the Miami Police Department, even as his homicidal urges are being channelled by his father, Harry (Christian Slater). The original Dexter, Michael C. Hall, supplies flashback narration, but it’s worth noting that this era was often referenced by the original series. Still, it’s great to see Buffy’s Sarah Michelle Gellar in a supporting role.
Social Studies
Disney+
With The Queen of Versailles and Generation Wealth, the American documentary filmmaker Lauren Greenfield provided a telling vision of how money is the lifeblood of her homeland. Her new five-part series follows a group of Los Angeles teenagers over a year, details how social media influences their adolescent experiences. For this generation born into digital platforms, the accumulated impact is often worrying and occasionally terrifying. Even with subjects from a different country, this is still deeply relevant to an Australian audience.
Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) and Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) in Fly Me to the Moon.Credit: Apple TV+
Fly Me to the Moon
Apple TV+
Cinema audiences did not rush to see this romantic-comedy, which stars Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum as NASA adversaries turned allies in the lead-up to the 1969 moon landing, when it debuted in July, but it deserves a second chance on streaming. Fans of the genre will appreciate the chemistry between the stars, and the skill with which the plot connects them personally and tests them professionally. Directed by prolific television creator Greg Berlanti (You, The Flash), the film gathers in diverse elements, and just enough of them take flight.
Pantheon
Amazon
I’m late to this adult animated science-fiction drama, which AMC+ debuted in 2023 and Amazon Prime thankfully picked up for a recent second season, but I am enjoying its knotty concepts, high-tech global stakes, and defiant young characters forging unlikely bonds. Voice work from the likes of Paul Dano, Taylor Schilling and Aaron Eckhart anchors a multi-pronged plot that revolves around “Uploaded Intelligence” – that is, your consciousness on the cloud. Unsurprisingly, the technology is not exactly being deployed for altruistic purposes. Kudos to the animation studio Titmouse: the visual aesthetic has a classical elegance.
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