El inocente (2021)

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1. 

   Siskoid

   I'm a fan of Oriol Paulo's films and how they manage to keep you guessing, mystery thrillers in which nothing is ever as it seems, and the 8-episode The Innocent (El Inocente) shows was the Spanish director can do with a longer format. The initial set-up seems similar to her The Invisible Guest, with a wrongful death and a vengeful parent, not to mention the participation of Mario Casas and Ana Wagener, but soon deviates. Indeed, The Innocent might have inspired that previous film since it started life as a Harlan Coben novel. New Jersey is now Barcelona, but otherwise, the story is much the same, going so far as to use the novelistic device of having each "chapter" headlined by a different character speeding us through their backstory in the 2nd person, as if the actor were telling their character who they are. It works surprisingly well, and in such a sequence as to suddenly reveal new truths about characters we thought we'd figured out. Paulo's great strength is teasing out information so that we get incomplete pictures, but don't realize we do, nor feel cheated when more information comes out. The mystery is complex enough to warrant a limited series (it keeps throwing twists at you in the epilogue!), though the length means it's not as tight as his movies are. There are perhaps even a couple of noticeable plot holes. But overall, a strong crime thriller with some of my favorite Spanish actors (hey, anyone who was in The Ministry of Time, I will like), and the police inspector played by Alexandra Jiménez could carry her own series. 8 months 2 weeks ago

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