Sometimes Looks Just Aren't Enough
Palm Royale and Loot are both on Apple TV and both have great looks but only one has purpose.
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Recognising our weaknesses is a big part of developing as a person and as a creative. I have come to terms with the fact that I like good looking things - whether that be movies, pop stars or shows. So, naturally, when the trailers dropped for Palm Royale on Apple TV I was like a moth to a flame. Every image is beautifully composed and filled with rich colours and wonderful shapes AND it has both Kristen Wiig and Ricky Martin! This is a show that LOOKS GOOD and revels in its period prettiness.
Most of the characters are either very rich or serving the very rich, so God forbid there should be anything to distract from the wealth aesthetic. The hippies look healthy and well dressed, the cheap motel looks clean and if you are distracted by the establishments lowly status then Kristen Wiig will be in the frame looking wonderful to help you over the beauty deficit.
However, despite the beauty, talent and money that has been invested in Palm Royale it does not quite satisfy.
In musical theatre structure the writer has an opening number that needs to let the audience know where they are and what kind of show they are about to see. Palm Royale serves this up for us very clearly with its Bond style underwater shot of a woman swimming fully clothed (obviously the real Bond would have had the swimmer in a bikini) which melts into a faux 60s title sequence and theme tune. There are beautiful shots of beautiful and sexy people with a voice over to set the scene and give us the equivalent of an ‘I Want’ number from which we quickly learn that Wiig’s character Maxine is desperate to become a member of the elite Palm Royale beach club and, thus, enter ‘high society’. She is thwarted by the club’s Mean Girls and their Queen Bee, Evelyn (Alison Janney).
There are wonderful images of the ladies looking gorgeous lounging poolside - always in Golden Hour lighting and always in costumes ( by Alix Friedberg) which Vogue describes as “downright superb”. There are silk kaftans, Jackie O sunglasses, beaded gowns and the classic ‘old lady’ headscarf remade to look glamorous and sexy. And did I mention there is also Ricky Martin in the smartest and crispest steward’s uniform ever seen. It looks like his character, Robert, works a maximum of 20 minutes before changing his work clothes for an entire new set, freshly washed, pressed and tailored.
Palm Royale is visually ravishing and it feels expensive but, as theatre critics used to say about mega-musicals, “you leave the show whistling the scenery”. And this is Palm Royale’s biggest challenge. The producers have spent millions making the show look luxuriously authentic, they have hired incredible actors to deliver the material but two hours into the series I still don’t know have a sense of what is driving Maxine - her ‘WHY?’
She is married to a man who may or may not be a pilot, and may or may not be a member of the a local wealthy family- the Delacorts. Maxine also spends time stealing valuable items from the comatose Mrs Delacort who she regularly visits in her suite / high end private hospital. Maxine is meantime living in a low grade motel which she has to leave because of unpaid bills. But in the length of a good movie we are still no clearer why Maxine does all the things she does.
This is not a ‘Lost’ or ‘Manifest’ type scenario where there is a major mysterious force or situation underpinning the whole edifice. Palm Royale is what Latin Americans would refer to as a ‘telenovela’ - an endlessly, never resolving soap opera full of glamour and good looks.
Palm Royale stands in contrast to another AppleTV show: Loot. In the latter there is a very wealthy lead female character, Molly Novak, (played wonderfully by Maya Rudolph) who lives in an artificial world of extreme billionaire wealth which has gradually detached her from reality and realness. In episode One she divorces her unfaithful tech CEO husband is left with a settlement worth $87billion. She also discovers that she has a charitable foundation which she decides will become her focus as she seeks to become more than just a billionaires ex-wife.
This sets up two things dramatically which make Loot far more interesting and engaging than Palm Royale. Firstly the lead character has a clear purpose. We might think why would she want to put herself through the pain of going to work every day when she has such wonderful life but at least we know that by re-engaging with her charity foundation, Molly hopes to find herself again. Secondly, because she is not equipped to work in this field there is a character conflict with the very focused woman running the charity, Sofia Salinas (the wonderful Michaela Jae Rodriguez).
As an audience we are now engaged because we have a classic ‘fish out of water’ tale, we have two characters that clash but need something from each other - Molly needs Sofia to help her understand her purpose and Sofia needs Molly to help the charity but both women need each other to help them become more complete as people. These needs make us want to discover how the show will tackle the conflict between carefree and shallow uber rich person and the team of normals who have existential challenges that she needs to understand.
We get all this information within the first half hour of Loot which allows us to sit back and watch how the story unfolds. In episode one Loot fills up the tank and plots a course for us, whereas Palm Royale has lounged back on a very expensive sofa and ordered several more premium cocktails while it decides whether it will wear the gold kaftan or the lime green ball gown. And the truth is we quickly decide that we don’t care that much about what the show looks like but we would like to know where it is going and, more importantly, why.
The JasonWard Creative Substack is a reader supported publication. I really appreciate your time spent here and invite you to support my work by taking out a subscription. A paid subscription gives you access to exclusive content plus the entire archive of over 100 articles, reviews, interviews, podcasts and playlists all full of creative insight designed to help you develop your creative projects and practise.
Palm Royale is about a group of very rich, white people living unfulfilled and even shallow lives. If you want to see the reality of life on Palm Beach at the time then check out this 1972 episode of Whicker's World - even if the colour is a little less opulent!
I saw a couple of clips with Maya Rudolph mocking the Vogue 73 questions format and Hot Ones and she was hilarious! What a talent!