Critic Reviews

Sharp Objects turns out to be everything you might have wanted. And also some things you didn’t know you wanted: This eight-part HBO miniseries is a scary thriller, a Southern gothic melodrama, a serial-killer murder mystery, and a dual portrait of motherhood and sisterhood--all of it combined with a sleek ease that rarely lets any effort show.

Graced with some of the best performances Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson have ever given, directed with sure-handed and sometimes flamboyant style by Jean-Marc Vallee and dripping with honey-coated but often barbed dialogue, “Sharp Objects” is flat-out great television.

Camille is literally covered in clichés (we’ll have more on her “Memento”-esque body stylings when spoilers aren’t a concern), but Adams is so subdued in every other measurable quality, her character never spills over into farce. ... Adams trusts her director and the writing, but she also trusts herself. Sharp Objects is a story told in flashes, but it’s always burning.

With a cast led by Adams operating at the peak of her abilities, Sharp Objects is dazzlingly itself, a show in thrall to the horror of its premise but one that finds nuance within unremitting darkness. ... As a detective story, it’s top-of-the-line, and its detective, a reporter who’s too close to her story and far too removed from compassion and from a clear understanding of reality, is a character that will endure long after the mystery is solved.

On TV, Sharp Objects can't precisely capture Flynn's prose and the internalized descent into disorientation taken page-by-page, but series director Jean-Marc Vallee finds his own visual language that, driven by a ferociously wounded performance by Amy Adams, makes this eight-hour limited series haunting and riveting--both prestige and pulp.

Throughout, Adams is a marvel, giving a performance like an open wound--after the damage has been done, but before it starts to hurt, right before the blood begins to well up.

Mesmerizing. ... There’s no cat-and-mouse game going on, no taunts from a genius criminal. Sharp Objects instead relies on internal drama and a transfixing Ms. Adams, who lays Camille’s ragged soul bare with sardonicism and self-loathing.

HBO’s wonderfully addictive eight-episode murder mystery based on the Gillian Flynn novel, is predominantly about character; the murder mystery is there to drive the captivating psychological profiles of the main characters. ... Clarkson is remarkable in the role. ... Adams carries the limited series beautifully with a quiet but jagged intensity.

Sharp Objects’s touch remains delicate throughout, thanks to its gifted lead, its beautiful writing, and, yes, its laser-sharp editing.

Adams, with the support of executive producers Flynn, Noxon and Vallée and an extraordinary team of co-stars, makes Sharp Objects use Camille to weave a palpably dark parable about history’s impact, and how failing to confront its lasting damage traps us. Grim as this assessment may be, this also makes the drama one of the better offerings on TV right now--not a feel-good summertime story by any means, but one deserving of attention and worth seeing through to the finish.