Bodies Series Review: Netflix’s Almost Perfect Dystopian Thriller Novel by Si Spencer
Cast: Stephen Graham, Amaka Okafor, Shira Haas, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Kyle Soller
Created By: Paul Tomalin
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
4 detectives. 4 timelines. 1 body. Bodies Netflix series is already presented and promoted with these few captivating words, one cannot help but be intrigued, especially if you are a fan of the investigative genre. The English are masters at building crime serials and unraveling a case over 6-8 episodes and this miniseries is no exception. But how can we propose a genre that has been so abused on TV in recent years in a new way? Combining past, present, and future, bringing some beloved faces of the platform back to TV and starting from the graphic novel of the same name, branded DC/Vertigo (their “adult” series) and created by Si Spencer, as we will see in the review of Bodies, which arrives with its eight episodes from October 19th on Netflix. We can already say that the series is very promising and has all it takes to end up in the Top 10 of the platform immediately and on everyone’s lips in a word of mouth that will create its next possible phenomenon.
It is difficult to find, in a television or cinematographic product, premises that are truly original, ideas that the viewer does not feel have already been seen. Approaching the vision of Bodies, the new Netflix series based on the graphic novel by Si Spencer, the sensation is that of an innovative concept, which starts from the typical elements of the thriller to create something unique, that kind of story capable of capturing a vast public, not just regular users of crime genre work. But what are these unexpected premises? As we’ll see in this review of Bodies, it all starts with a body. The same body was found – in the same point – in four different time contexts: in 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053. And in each of these timelines, we have detectives, destined to investigate who may have murdered this unknown man, who cannot be identified. The more the investigations continue, the more plots, conspiracies, and revolutionary but – unfortunately – extremely dangerous scientific discoveries will come to light.
The narrative – just as we would expect from a series that starts from such original ideas – proceeds through increasingly shocking twists and turns while remaining anchored to a certain realism and not betraying its origins as a graphic novel. A successful product that we are sure will be a great success, positively distinguishing itself from the many new arrivals on the platform. We haven’t seen a series like this in a long time. Of stories capable of captivating so much, of dragging us into a fictional world full of mysteries, twists, and plot twists so unexpected as to leave us speechless. Series built on multiple narrative levels where every small detail makes a difference and can connect characters from different eras. Stories where past, present, and future mix to create a fluid, malleable, real but at the same time imaginary time. Not since Dark and 1899 has Netflix created a psychological thriller of this depth, where dystopia mixes with crime and where nothing is really as it seems.
Bodies Series Review: The Story Plot
Bodies is set in four different years, distant from each other: 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053. A corpse, naked, without an eye, and with a strange tattoo on the wrist mysteriously appears in Longharvest Lane, an alley in Whitechapel, in East London. In the past, present, and future he is always the same individual. How is it possible? Four detectives – Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller), Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor), and Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) – will find themselves investigating the identity of the unknown corpse, and soon, against their will, they will realize that behind the mysterious individual lies something much bigger than they could have ever imagined: a conspiracy capable of endangering their lives and those of those they love, a sect of evil terrorists and someone who plots in shadow – the enigmatic political leader named Elias Mannix (Stephen Graham) – driven by who knows what goals.
A mystery to be solved, in short, which goes far beyond the discovery of a body in an infamous neighborhood of the English capital, something that has its roots in the past made up of discrimination, class, religious and sexual differences, which have always existed in a large, pulsating and multi-ethnic city like London. The plot of Bodies is as simple as it is ingenious and tangled, just like the best self-respecting detective story: the same body is found in Longharvest Lane in Whitechapel, in the East End of London in 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053 and four different agents police officers find themselves dealing with the same case over two centuries. Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller) lives in the Jack The Ripper years and comes across a journalist with decidedly unconventional tastes for the time.
Charles Whiteman (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd from The Queen’s Gambit) is a corrupt policeman in the years of the war and Hitler is willing to do anything to survive. In 2023, in the present day, Shahara Hasan (Amaka Okafor) is a detective of Muslim origin and a single mother, torn between two worlds. Just as agent Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas from Unhortodox) is torn between the family relationships she sacrificed to join the police and the system organized by a politician and world leader, Elias Mannix (a sibylline Stephen Graham, seen in Peaky Blinders on the platform as well as former Al Capone of Boardwalk Empire). Each time the case seems destined to end up unsolved, but the paths of the characters will connect despite the wide spectrum of years that divide them with a series of twists that keep the viewer glued and lead him to binge-watching.
Bodies Series Review and Analysis
Each episode of Bodies becomes a magnet for the viewer who is left with more and more clues but at the same time more and more gaps to fill in a story that involves, scares, excites but, above all, makes us reflect on life, and its most important values. Each character, in any era, can present himself to the public, to show himself on multiple physiological layers, creating a story where what matters is not only a well-studied plot and its twists but also the evolution of the character, his internal structure made up of fears, insecurities, fragility which is shown with great humanity and truth. Bodies is one of those series that rarely arrive on streaming platforms but which, even before their debut, emanate their light, an aura of magic which then, when you immerse yourself in their vision, is released and becomes real. The first four episodes are the most overwhelming and lead you into a story that, going forward, will show some small flaws but will not lose quality.
It is precisely from the many forms of discrimination that exist today, but also from those that existed in the past and that will exist in the future, that the series created by Paul Tomalin and directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner and Haolu Wang begins. The four protagonists are all marginalized in their way: Alfred is secretly homosexual, Charles is Jewish – in a very complicated period like the Second World War -, Hasan is a woman and Muslim, and Iris, finally, hides a serious disability. These are characters who look at the world from a disadvantaged perspective and who are chosen against their will for a mission that risks changing everything they know, endangering what little stability they have achieved.
The series’ approach in this sense is particularly interesting and leads us as spectators to come face to face with situations that are inevitably so different from our own: how the future is imagined, in particular, is what pushes us to reflect the most. We find ourselves in a society that, after overcoming an extremely traumatic event, has survived by eliminating discrimination, finding space for everyone, and saving the planet with the right rules and indications. But it is a dictatorship, which has crushed democracy without hiding: is it right to fight for freedom in a world that has eliminated everything that was profoundly wrong in the past and has rebuilt itself on principles of equality? What will be the consequences of a revolution in such a context? What is right and what is wrong?
It is precisely in its “construction” of the future that Bodies struck us, it is in the fourth timeline that all the originality of this story stands out and that the viewer is forced to ask himself the greatest number of questions. The future of Bodies is extremely credible: we find ourselves in a world that has been rebuilt to be welcoming to everyone, where discrimination no longer exists, and where nature is protected. In which today’s problems have been overcome and solved. But it is essentially a dictatorship. What is it right to fight for, asks Shira Haas’s Iris: to regain the freedom of the past? We know, however, that this would bring with it all that rot, that discrimination, that horror, which have been laboriously resolved… Bodies is also credible in its reconstruction of the past, first at the end of the nineteenth century, in which being homosexual was considered a crime, and then during the years of the Second World War.
It is very interesting to discover how Jews were treated in England, a context that officially did not share Hitler’s ideals but in which religious discrimination still existed and thrived. The rich cast is compelling in the different roles, in particular, we greatly appreciated the performances of Amaka Okafor and Shira Haas (who a few years ago was a real revelation as the protagonist of Unorthodox), who give life to extremely intense and endowed with great inner strength. The other two protagonists, Kyle Soller and Jacob Fortune-Lloyd are also striking: the detectives they play are forced to respond to models of masculinity imposed by the society in which they live, but they constantly clash with a reality that does not belong to them.
Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, for example, plays a character forced to change his name and hide his cultural and religious roots to be respected by his peers. We conclude by underlining once again how Bodies is a successful and well-made product, an ambitious series destined to stand out in the vast Netflix catalog for the care with which it was created. An impressive production, that guides us on an intriguing journey through time, made up of continuous surprises and twists. After having seen the first four episodes, which were given to us as a preview, we can’t wait to continue watching and find out how this intriguing adventure between past, present, and future will end. Give yourself this gift, fall in love with Bodies, lose yourself in its tunnels, in its mysteries, in its fascinating and ambitious story. Do it because you don’t see such beautiful series, even if they have some imperfections, often and when you have a little gem before your eyes, you have to enjoy it from start to finish.
The story of the comic has been transposed to the present day in the serial (originally it was 2014), as well as the London of 2053, and the present has become the year in which a shocking event occurs that will lead to the changes seen in the future, a sort of apocalyptic autocracy directed by Mannix. Bodies, thanks to the basic subject and its development, intrigue and have all the characteristics to excite the viewer and try to make him understand the general puzzle made up of the elements seen in the show. Issues such as artificial intelligence and free will are on the agenda and the disturbing phrase that accompanies all eras and characters, or “Know that he loves you” recalls the Gilead of The Handmaid’s Tale and that future dystopian we would never want to live in. We can’t wait to see the rest to try to understand the role of Mannix and the four detectives in the story, and what all this will tell us about the society and historical era in which we live.
Bodies Series Review: The Last Words
Bodies is the new ambitious and surprising Netflix series based on the graphic novel by Si Spencer: a story set on four different time planes that drag the viewer into an adventure full of twists and turns. At the end of the review of Bodies (the first four episodes) we confirm that it is a series born with the characteristics of the algorithm but which at the same time knows how to propose something new. The original graphic novel becomes an interlocking sequence of events, protagonists, and different time planes that the public can have fun connecting, while the visual sector also makes the difference between the years explored in the story well, thanks to the use of color and photography.
Bodies Series Review: Netflix’s Almost Perfect Dystopian Thriller Novel by Si Spencer - Filmyhype
Director: Bodies Series
Date Created: 2023-10-19 19:34
4
Pros
- An incipit full of elements and tension.
- The colors that describe the four eras told.
- The twists are well placed.
- The performers convince.
Cons
- The length of the episodes is a bit noticeable.
- The plot is particularly tangled.
- The past on a visual level could have been "dirtied" more.
