Nicole Kidman stars in a captivating murder mystery : NPR

in Scarpettathe brand new mystery sequence now streaming on Prime Video, Nicole Kidman performs medical expert Kay Scarpetta — however she is not the one one portraying the character.

The narrative in Scarpetta unfolds as two completely different mysteries from two completely different timelines, and shifts between them like playing cards being shuffled in a deck. One timeline, in the current, has Kidman as Kay, returning to her previous job after a very long time off, and immediately confronted with a baffling set of murders. The different timeline, from 1998, reveals a youthful Kay taking the job as chief medical expert for the primary time — and being hit with a serial murder case then, too.

In scenes from the previous, Kay is performed by a completely different actress, Rosy McEwen, who matches Kidman’s mannerisms and demeanor completely. It’s a high-wire balancing act, additionally required of just about all the opposite younger actors, who handle to reflect their extra mature counterparts convincingly and entertainingly.

That’s not a simple activity, as a result of the actors in the present timeline are main gamers, delivering wonderful, wide-ranging performances. Jamie Lee Curtis performs Kay’s flamboyant sister, Dorothy, writer of a in style sequence of youngsters’s books. Bobby Cannavale performs plain-speaking, quick-tempered murder detective Pete Marino, and Simon Baker performs cerebral FBI profiler Benton Wesley.

All of those film stars have completed exceptionally nicely on tv: Baker on The Mentalist, Cannavale on Boardwalk EmpireCurtis on The Bear and Kidman in a string of small-screen triumphs, together with Nine Perfect Strangers, The Perfect Couple and Big Little Lies.

When Kidman and Curtis share the display, which is usually, it is incendiary. As kids, Kay witnessed their father’s loss of life throughout a theft — certainly one of many variations between the 2 sisters.

Scarpetta is predicated on a sequence of novels by best-selling writer Patricia Cornwell, who’s written 29 tales thus far constructed round Kay Scarpetta. The fashionable components of this first-season story — a follow-up second season has already been ordered — are impressed by Autopsythe twenty fifth guide in her sequence. The murder mystery set in the previous is from Cornwell’s very first Scarpetta novel, Postmortemsince 1990.

Liz Sarnoff, the writer-producer who developed this for tv, combines them each, in a format that calls for shut consideration — however rewards it, too. And she has expertise writing for some extraordinarily sensible TV sequence, together with ABC’s lost and HBO’s Deadwood and Barry.

Sarnoff, working with a pool of administrators and different writers, delivers strong mysteries in each storylines, in addition to an intriguing subplot involving emotional dependence on an AI-generated persona. But it is the characters, not the clues, that make Scarpetta so captivating. The veteran actors are rock-solid — Cannavale, particularly, is terrific — and so are their youthful counterparts. In one little bit of very efficient casting, the youthful model of Cannavale’s detective is performed by the actor’s personal son, Jake.

I understand this entire sequence construction sounds difficult. And it’s. But it is rewarding, too. I’ve seen all eight episodes, and the plots and the characters actually maintain up. And I have never even talked about Ariana DeBose, one other main identify in this manufacturing, who performs Dorothy’s daughter. Or Amanda Righetti, who performs Dorothy in the flashback scenes. There’s a lot to applaud right here, and a lot to soak up. And with Prime Video streaming your entire sequence without delay, you possibly can gobble it up as quick as you possibly can, to assist hold issues straight, identical to a good novel. Or two good novels.