Elisabeth Moss as Detective Robin Griffin, Gwendoline Christie as Miranda Hilmarson - Top Of The Lake: China Girl _ Season 2, Episode 1 - Photo Credit: SundanceTV/See-Saw Films
There’s no mystery to why the first season of Jane Campion’s “Top of the Lake” was so great: She took the genre trappings of a typical detective story to examine sexual abuse and the power struggle between men and women.
“Top of the Lake: China Girl,” the second season of the miniseries premiering this Sunday on SundanceTV, might be even better than the first. It puts the show’s themes above the mystery without sacrificing any of the action, tension or subversive touches. Elisabeth Moss, Gwendoline Christie and Nicole Kidman are a wonderful trio of dark, complex and flawed characters, and it’s harrowing to see if they can survive their demons.
“China Girl” starts four years after the original miniseries, shifting the action from Detective Robin Griffin’s rural hometown in New Zealand to Sydney. The season opens with the caretakers at a brothel shoving a suitcase into the ocean. A sex worker has gone missing and Robin (Moss) is on the case, but is also trying to track down her daughter Mary (Alice Englert). In the first season, we learned Robin was raped when she was just a teenager and was forced to give up her baby. Now Mary is 17, but her 42-year-old boyfriend, Alexander (David Dencik), works at the brothel connected to the disappearance.
With his erratic ramblings about academia and feminism in a thick Eastern European accent, you’d think Tommy Wiseau played him. He’s a repulsive figure, yet Dencik lends Alexander a mysterious allure that ensnares Mary and the other women in the brothel.
“China Girl” also finds ways outside the brothel to further explore the sexism examined in Season 1. Robin is openly challenged and mocked by her coworkers, and she can’t go a few moments without being hit on. She’ll be standing in front of a mutilated body in the morgue and will have another detective ask her out.
“China Girl” also examines an ethical, political discussion that will be more relatable to Australian audiences than American ones: commercial surrogacy, a practice that’s illegal throughout Australia. Campion’s investigation of the thorny ethics of the practice are woven nicely into the story.
Even more impressive is the show’s visual style. Campion has a knack for beautifully empty shots that reveal Robin’s distance and detachment from everyone in her life. As in the last season, she’s also sitting on the floor in her lonely apartment or office. And the slow-motion tracking shots as she walks down the lavender corridors of the brothel look like something out of “Taxi Driver.”
But this season, Moss shares the screen with two equally compelling performers. Christie clowns about her height and provides the series some momentary levity it urgently needs. And Kidman, from beneath a messy frock of gray hair, cuts Robin down with cool efficiency. All three give forceful, genuine performances.
“China Girl” does what “True Detective” hoped to — it is intense, disturbing and bizarre without buckling under the weight of its philosophies or politics.
SundanceTV will present the series as a three-night special event starting Sunday, Sept. 10 and continuing Monday and Tuesday.
10 Outtakes from Elisabeth Moss' EmmyWrap Cover Shoot
On being the lead in the Sundance Channel miniseries "Top of the Lake": "I suppose it's the first time I've been No. 1 on the call sheet. I frankly just had so much to do -- I was working, I think, 65 or 66 days out of the 82 shooting days, and 50 of those days were in a row. So it was definitely a bigger venture than I've ever done."
On recording her own audition for the part: "I put the camera on a coffee table and sat on the floor and fixed the lighting and took out a light bulb and made sure it looked nice, and I sent it off and went to dinner. The next night I got a text from Jane [Campion] that basically was like, 'You're my Robin.'"
"One thing Jane said to me in the very beginning, before i actually auditioned which I really appreciated was, 'I know that you can do vulnerable. I've seen that. I need to see that you can cover it up.' And I completely understood that request, because I frankly needed to see if I could do that as well."
On changing as an actor: "I learned honestly what I need as an actor and who I am as an actor, because I don't think there is any right way to act, I don't think there is any right way to play a scene or play a part. I felt like I learned so much about my own instrument, so to speak, and became a lot stronger."
"I never really went to any acting school or anything, so I'm not very good at the nomenclature of acting. But I suppose I learned to know when it's there and it's not. To know when to not think about it, and when to do a bit more work on it and spend some time with the scene."
"The joy that someone would get from playing a beautiful piece of music or painting or dancing and whatever it is, I get that weird same joy and pleasure when I'm acting. To me, showing human truth is really interesting, and tapping into emotions -- I find it really fun."
On auditioning: "Jane said the most amazing thing to me, she said, 'You don't have to hit the bullseye, just get the dart on the board.' And I will never for the rest of my life forget that she said that, because as an actor it just liberated me."
On Jane casting her: "Occasionally someone is open and trusting and gives you a chance to show that you can do something different. It's hard to find that sometimes as an actor when you want to try different things. And I'm so forever grateful to her."
On "Mad Men's" end: "It's bittersweet ... what I just keep thinking about is the last time that they say 'Cut' and call 'Check the gate,' and that's the last time I will ever play Peggy. That, to me, is so strange. That I will never open my mouth as that character again is so weird to me. I think I'll probably just be sort of numb about it, and then it'll hit me eight months later."
"I feel like I really arrived at the right place and the right time. I'm sure that it will always be more difficult, but I think that there is an incredible opportunity out there right now."
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The "Top of the Lake" star dishes on the miniseries and what the end of "Mad Men" will be like for her
On being the lead in the Sundance Channel miniseries "Top of the Lake": "I suppose it's the first time I've been No. 1 on the call sheet. I frankly just had so much to do -- I was working, I think, 65 or 66 days out of the 82 shooting days, and 50 of those days were in a row. So it was definitely a bigger venture than I've ever done."
