★★☆☆☆
Tom Holland continues his quest to shed his friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man image in this dark psychological thriller, but there are very few thrills present. Read our full review of The Crowded Room.
The Crowded Room, AppleTV+’s newest project starring Tom Holland, is loosely based on the story of one Billy Milligan. We won’t spoil here who Milligan is and what he’s known for, because if you know that, it kind of ruins the surprises that The Crowded Room holds.
When the trailer was released, curiosity got the best of me and I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, reading more about Milligan – and now I wish I hadn’t. Perhaps then I would have found some enjoyment out of The Crowded Room, a painfully dull TV show about something quite remarkable.
Holland plays Danny Sullivan (who is only loosely based on Milligan), who is arrested for his involvement in a shooting. Danny, confused, tries to explain he was only partly responsible for the incident, but as interrogator Rya Goodwin (Amanda Seyfried) digs deeper into Danny’s past, they uncover the frightening truth.
Credit: AppleTV+
The Crowded Room is told through the interviews Rya conducts with Danny. Danny tells her his life story, which unfolds in flashbacks for the audience. We’re privy to the abuse Danny has suffered at the hands of his stepfather and the usual romantic entanglements all teenage protagonists go through in American TV shows.
Emmy Rossum plays Danny’s mother in flashbacks and Sasha Lane plays Danny’s roommate and accomplice Ariana. Jason Isaacs turns up as a posh Englishman in episode three when Danny heads to London. The Crowded Room is a remarkably well cast show, but its central mystery just isn’t built very well.
Unlike Tina Satter’s compelling, nerve-shredding Reality, which also adapted real events, The Crowded Room isn’t able to sustain similar tension, especially if the audience knows what’s going on. The ten episodes move at a glacial pace towards an ending which fails to shock or evoke any kind of emotion.
Holland has been keen to shed his nicey-nice public image after playing Spider-Man in several Marvel projects, but so far, his efforts haven’t been great. Or more like, when it comes to picking projects, his instincts are terrible. The role of Danny Sullivan allows for Holland to utilise his boyish, awkward charm which works well in the flashbacks but he lacks the needed intensity in the interview scenes.
The Crowded Room certainly looks the part. With that Apple money, the production value is off the charts, but it can’t save a tired narrative. Even if you’re oblivious to the central mystery, The Crowded Room bounces from one cliché to another. The scenes of Danny courting his crush, Annabelle (Emma Laird), feel like they’ve been lifted from a completely different show as the narrative comes to a complete standstill any time the two share the screen.
The Crowded Room does have amicable talent behind the camera. Alan Taylor, Mona Fastvold, Brady Corbet and Kornél Mundruczó direct the ten episodes, but none of the episodes standout particularly. Christopher Abbott enters the show about halfway through, playing a public defender with a handsome moustache and he manages to give the show a much-needed jolt of life. Once his character enters the show, things get interesting, but The Crowded Room can’t quite shake the disappointment and weight of those earlier episodes.
There’s a brilliant, complex story at the heart of this thriller-drama, but it gets lost in the clichés. It’s genuinely a joy to see Holland play against his usual type but The Crowded Room proves out to be a disappointingly middling, uneven series.
The Crowded Room premieres its first three episodes on 9 June before airing episodes weekly on AppleTV+.
