Ella Purnell channels female rage in this dark serial-killer comedy

Sweetpea
★★★★
Binge, October 10

Fans of Ella Purnell, whose career has taken off recently after starring roles in Sweetbitter, Yellowjackets and Fallout, might be surprised to learn that despite her Hollywood credentials, she’s actually British. Her new black comedy, set in the UK, and on which she’s both star and executive producer, has Purnell return to her native accent playing a woman who is so fed up with being overlooked, she turns to murder. Serial murder, in fact.

Ella Purnell as Rhiannon, a wallflower-turned-killer in Sweetpea.Credit: Binge

She plays Rhiannon Lewis, a mousy twentysomething receptionist (Purnell has never looked so dowdy) at the local newspaper, where the staff barely acknowledge her and her boss Norman (Ted Lasso’s Jeremy Swift) seemingly doesn’t even know her name – he refers to her, mostly when he wants her to make him cups of tea, as “sweetpea”.

The first episode opens with Rhiannon on a crowded bus, mentally making a list of “people I’d love to kill: man-spreaders; Donna in the mini-market; Norman at work for failing to acknowledge my potential ...” And the list goes on. We’ve all been there, but few of us (I hope) act on our inner voice’s fantasies.

Rhiannon is tired of being invisible, and then things get worse when her dad dies, followed soon after by her beloved dog, Tink. Then she learns that her distant sister has plans to sell the family home to Rhiannon’s brutal bully from high school, Julia (Mood’s Nicole Lecky), who is now a successful real estate agent.

Rhiannon finds herself gaining new confidence after she turns to kiling.Credit: Binge

Julia and her friends made Rhiannon’s life so miserable at school that she literally tore her hair out, and had to wear a wig, resulting in Rhiannon making herself smaller, turning into something of a wallflower.

Having to deal with Julia, her dad’s employee Craig (Jon Pointing), a one-time love interest who now wants to buy out the company, and her growing rage at being taken for granted at work, Rhiannon, on an angry whim, begins a murder spree using her late dad’s treasured pocket knife.

When the shock of her first kill wears off, Rhiannon begins to feel strangely empowered, finding a confidence she’s never had before. Suddenly she feels capable of anything. When her first victim is found, she talks her way into helping write the news story about it for the local paper (after Norman had laughed at her wanting to apply for a junior reporter role), and on learning that the victim was a bully, she feels she’s found some kind of purpose. An intoxicating, murderous purpose.

Suddenly, her life changes; she’s asked along to work drinks for the first time, she gets something of a promotion and she feels brazen enough to ask Craig out on a sort-of date. And she has a plan for her old nemesis, especially when she learns that Julia herself wants to buy her home and “flip” it.

It’s not easy to make an endearing serial killer, but you will find yourself wanting this wide-eyed anti-hero (to put it mildly) to succeed, even as she brutally stabs someone to death. This might be a very British deadpan comedy, but it does get gory.

Based on the 2017 book of the same name by C.J. Skuse, Sweetpea is an imagined prequel to the book, focusing on Rhiannon’s childhood trauma as the catalyst for her killing.

To reveal more would be to spoil things, but there’s a twist in Rhiannon’s murderous journey that you won’t see coming, which makes this delicious comedy – that has been described as a “coming-of-rage” story – even more (dark) fun.

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