Elisabeth Moss leads Apple TV Plus’ gritty Shining Girls trailer
Based on Lauren Beukes’ bestselling novel, Shining Girls is a metaphysical thriller that premieres in April
Aux News Elisabeth Moss
Elisabeth Moss continues her trend of playing characters who simply don’t get to be happy on-screen. The Handmaid’s Tale and The Invisible Man star leads the upcoming Apple TV+’s metaphysical thriller, Shining Girls. Based on Lauren Beukes’ bestselling novel of the same name, the show will premiere on the streaming platform in April.
Moss plays Kirby Mazrachi, a Chicago-based newspaper archivist who puts her journalistic ambitions on hold after she is brutally assaulted. Six years later, she teams up with seasoned crime reporter Dan Velazquez (Wagner Moura) when a string of recent murders mirrors her own case. As seen in the trailer, Kirby describes the suspect by eerily saying, “He’s everybody, he’s nobody, he’s all the time,” as if he has the ability to time jump.
Since her attack, Kirby has noticed how her world keeps quietly changing. One minute she has a pet cat, the next it’s a dog. She feels like her attacker has followed her for her entire life—cut to a scene where the unknown man is interacting with Kirby as a little girl. In fact, even her appearances keep changing throughout the trailer.
Dan and Kirby soon realize that multiple cold cases over decades are inextricably linked, and connect to their own individual traumas as well. Can this killer actually hop through the years? Maybe that explains Kirby’s blurred, constantly shifting reality. The term “metaphysical thriller” suddenly makes more sense, huh? They begin a race against time (possibly literally) to try and hunt down the maniacal killer.
Created by Silka Luisa, the adaptation also stars Phillipa Soo, Amy Brenneman, and Jamie Bell. Moss will also direct some episodes of and co-produce the show. Shining Girls premieres on April 29 with three episodes, with the remaining five airing every week.
35 Comments
Does Moss play a woman who is victimised by men in this?
Dude! Spoiler!
A rolling stone gathers no Moss.
Don’t they have make up for shiny girls?
Clean and Going Clear?
Looking forward to it. The book was excellent, as is most of Beukes’ work.Some of it might be pretty brutal, though. Beukes used to be a crime reporter and she knows how to write violence in a way that makes it uncomfortably real.
I didn’t know she was a crime reporter! That makes so much sense. I’ve read two of her books, and they felt gritty and real in a way that I couldn’t put my finger on.
Scientologist
Can someone explain to me how Moss has lasted this long without becoming subject to the same criticisms of Scientology as fellow church member Tom Cruise?
I barely finished this book. Did not enjoy it all. The entire plot revolved around “special” woman (who have no definition at all beyond being vaguely shiny, but always women) getting brutally murdered over and over again by a murderer who is helped by a magical house. The end offers no explanation or reason for any of this. It’s just ugly and brutal and really violent against women. Not looking forward to the TV version of that.
That is a really reasonable explanation for not liking it. I thought it was an effective way to explore the ways that the world crushes women, especially those who might challenge the status quo, and I liked the characters, but yeah, it’s very goddamn brutal, and I can definitely understand not wanting to read/watch that. It’s unpleasant!
Spoilers for a book that came out years ago: There was no explanation for what the house was, or why it time travelled, or why the murderer killed, right? It’s been a long time since I read this and I kind of skimmed the 2nd second half because I found it so unpleasant. But the fact that all the violence was never explained really tipped this into do not recommend for me.
Outside Ted Lasso, Snoopy, and Fraggle Rock, every other series I’ve tried to watch on Apple TV has been terrible.
Severance, For All Mankind, and The Afterparty are all great!!
The Afterparty was terrible. I was going to give Severance a try but the last several I watched have made me skeptical. But maybe I will give it a chance.
I did like The Morning Show too.
I liked the Afterparty and thought The Morning Show was terrible haha, so we’ll cancel those out. But Severance is really with a watch.
Fist bump
The entire plot revolved around “special” woman (who have no definition at all beyond being vaguely shiny, but always women) getting brutally murdered over and over again…It’s just ugly and brutal and really violent against women. Ah. Was wondering why they chose Elizabeth Moss for this. One of the many things that was off about The French Dispatch was that when Elizabeth Moss is onscreen there’s no male characters victimising her.
Not long ago we stumbled across Top of the Lake, and… well, it’s an extremely minor spoiler to say that this pattern of characters was hardly destined to be broken under Jane Campion.Very compelling show if you are in the mood for a dark whodunnit. One still hopes for the (considerable) level of cosmic alignment that would be needed to bring about a third season at this point…
There’s one thing that Moss needs to be given the fuckin’ Gold Logie for:Her accent in TOTL. Holy fucking shit. She actually nails proper – modern – Aussie accent, and not “Suff Ifrikan speech impediment” accents most Yanks end up doing. Australian is the hardest accent to do. That blew me away. There needs to be a statue of her voiceprint somewhere.I didn’t watch the first season, nor, to be honest, the follow-up, China Girl. Look, China Girl was a great premise, but I honestly don’t think Campion has the writing chops to handle it properly, and certainly not in the 20th century. I really wanna know what Karen Webb thought of it.
I thought TOTP was set in New Zealand? Or I could be wrong but that’s how I remember it.
I think that in the first season she plays an Australian émigré cop who is visiting her ill mother in her old home town in New Zealand and gets caught up in a local mystery; and the second season, a few years later both in-world and in real time, finds her back in Sydney.
First series was. Second, she went back to Sydney.
“It’s just ugly and brutal and really violent against women.” is exactly how I would describe this book, too. I also did not enjoy it at all. It was just a bunch of young women dying horribly and had a completely unsatisfying conclusion.
Do they shine because of body thetans?
Elisabeth Moss is carving out a new niche as Ashley Judd’s replacement in the “troubled woman pursues a killer” genre.
Moss: “Maybe. I’ll need at least three raw super-close ups every episode, one crying scene…oh, and to direct.”
In Scientology, were all Shiny
Moss is a great actor, and I’m happy to see her in stuff, but I do kind of miss seeing the range she was able to strike in Mad Men that she hasn’t really been given her more recent projects, all of which seem to vacillate between abject suffering and shallow triumphalism.
It suits her two expressions.
Ha!
The book is great, and I had no idea this was being made. Hell yeah!
will she use her OT powers
Where is she on the Bridge?
Can’t wait for this. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen a closeup of Elizabeth Moss glowering into the camera.