In “Cursed”, a new series on Netflix that reaffirms the Arthurian legend with a contemporary sensibility, Katherine Langford plays Nimue, a young woman whose sense of justice is affected and inflamed by a destiny to lead her people through a moment of turmoil. . At one point, a rival of sorts refers to her under the title “the witch of the wolf’s blood, feared wielder of the devil’s tooth”; listened to in a certain way, it is reminiscent of the many titles held by Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) in “Game of Thrones”.
Cursed has less in mind than its predecessor in the space of sword and witchcraft, and its visual effects are noticeably less compelling. (Make up for deficiencies in VFX with animated interstitials, which are convincingly done.) However, it fits seamlessly into the new genre television tradition that subverts the classic myth and aims to cross – in this case, featuring Langford, the “13 Reasons Why” star, as a giveaway for beginner fanatics of fantasy Nimue, born with fearsome gifts and a powerful bloodline, embarks on a mission to deliver a sword to Merlin (Gustaf Skarsgård) with the help of Arthur (Devon Terrell); she is sidetracked by revelations about who she is and what she can do and by matters of the heart.
Langford has the charisma of a star, but he has been presented with a report that the show’s writing can’t solve: playing both a fierce leader and a vulnerable young man. It is not that these traits cannot coexist (that is, they did in Daenerys, the modern archetype of a certain type of character), but rather that “Damn’s” feints towards current speech and thought patterns make Nimue’s moments be higher. Dudgeon seems random. When she says to Arthur that she wants to escape with him to a place where “it could be us”, or when she says of Arthur, that “it is a little difficult to describe what we are”, the noise of the 21st century. The shades make the decorations feel less like the medieval era than the Medieval Times restaurant.
Some updates here are welcome; Terrell (probably best known for playing Barack Obama in the movie “Barry”) is a divergent choice for a character traditionally portrayed as white, and the actor wears the mantle with grace and ease. And the remixing of well-known names like Gawain and Merlin into new roles within the myth, as it did previously in the source material for the graphic novel, by Frank Miller and Tom Wheeler, is done brilliantly. (Miller and Wheeler are executive producers here, with Wheeler acting as showrunner.)
However, the breeze is a double-edged sword, so to speak. And the story’s lack of fidelity to the roles particular characters must play in myth or the way they have traditionally been viewed may give way to a modern cliche that suggests a paucity of better ideas. Placing the characters in unusual arrangements, with a young woman destined to be the Lady of the Lake at the center of the myth, is a creative notion; Giving your first thought dialogue and often schematic motivations suggests that creativity here also has limits.
