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Thread: Sharp Objects: HBO Series based on book by Gone Girl author

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    Sharp Objects: HBO Series based on book by Gone Girl author

    Gillian Flynn's debut novel Sharp Objects is being adapted into an 8 episode HBO series starring Amy Adams.
    The showrunner and principal scriptwriter is Marti Noxon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, and the series is being produced by eOne and Jason Blum who previously worked together on Sinister and Insidious. Flynn will also work on the script. Jean Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club) will "direct the series." I'm not sure if this means he will be directing every episode, but his is the only name attached at this point.

    The story follows and is narrated by a young journalist whose mental health issues and proclivity for cutting herself are exacerbated by the grim stories she often has to cover. She is struggling to stay on an even keel after a recent stay in a psychiatric hospital, when her boss asks her to return to her hometown to cover yet another murder story.
    Her investigation takes her deep into a web of gruesome crimes and forces her to confront painful things about herself, her family and her past. (That's how the book went down at any rate.)

    Details are sparse but seem to be emerging slowly but surely. The show is set to premiere in 2017 and has been compared (by Noxon) to True Detective.

    So i fucking adored this book. There have been rumors of a TV adaptation for a few years, but after the half assed film adaptation of Flynn's other novel Dark Places, i wasn't too excited.
    But with Noxon as showrunner collaborating with the author on the script, an Oscar nominated lead actress in Adams, the involvement of the production team that brought us insidious, the director of a film which received six oscar nominations on board, and the fact that HBO's shows are generally pretty bad ass, i am utterly thrilled. I have a feeling that this will finally be the vehicle that does justice to Gillian Flynn's dark, smart writing style. Honestly, i can't fucking wait.
    All this needs is a score by Trent or Atticus.

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    OMG! I didn't know this was happening. I'm very excited to see how this turns out. I read this at the pool this summer in two days! I really do love Flynn's style of writing. No one comes close to her style as far as I am concerned. Right in the middle or rereading Gone Girl currently. Plus having Marti Noxon makes me even more thrilled.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Uraki14 View Post
    OMG! I didn't know this was happening. I'm very excited to see how this turns out. I read this at the pool this summer in two days! I really do love Flynn's style of writing. No one comes close to her style as far as I am concerned. Right in the middle or rereading Gone Girl currently. Plus having Marti Noxon makes me even more thrilled.
    Hell yes. It sounds like we're in the same boat

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    I always have to watch Gone Girl when it comes on TV. It is just so gripping! I do have to say I was a bit disappointed with the Dark Places adaptation. I really enjoyed that book a lot and thought with the cast it was going to be so good. I think doing this as a series is definitely the best way to handle it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Uraki14 View Post
    I always have to watch Gone Girl when it comes on TV. It is just so gripping! I do have to say I was a bit disappointed with the Dark Places adaptation. I really enjoyed that book a lot and thought with the cast it was going to be so good. I think doing this as a series is definitely the best way to handle it.
    Agreed.
    Dark places was a terrible adaptation of a great book.
    But Sharp Objects sounds like it's going to be incredible, considering all the talent involved.

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    I went into this with high expectations, and i couldn't believe it: this show EXCEEDED those expectations.

    The tone is so fucking grim and some of the dialogue just isn't very PC, so i figured it would be watered down.
    But it isn't. They went all in.
    Plus, the cinematography is stunning. The way it's cut is kind of Lynchian.
    I LOVED Gone Girl but i have a feeling this might be better.

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    Watching this with the missus this week!

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    Underwhelmed with the first episode, haven't seen the 2nd yet. Just too damn slow! And that's coming from someone who loves slowly developed characters. Maybe it was because we had to spend time her flashbacks, but besides an hour long intro to Amy Adam's character (who I like) I didn't get a sense of where the plot was going or why I should be interested. Hope it picks up in pace and plotting.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sebek View Post
    Underwhelmed with the first episode, haven't seen the 2nd yet. Just too damn slow! And that's coming from someone who loves slowly developed characters. Maybe it was because we had to spend time her flashbacks, but besides an hour long intro to Amy Adam's character (who I like) I didn't get a sense of where the plot was going or why I should be interested. Hope it picks up in pace and plotting.
    No.

    Hahaha. Honestly, it should certainly heat up if it follows the book (which it certainly seems to so far)

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    First thing's first: so far I am HIGHLY satisfied with the way the book is being presented in the show. I remember when this show was going to be a CW drama and had zero hopes for it. It's great to see it end up in the hands of people who can do the book justice, which they so far are. Amy Adams was a perfect choice. And her mom's house is pretty much exactly how I imagined it when reading the book, so that's pretty nice. I'm also really loving the way they are handling Camille seeing words in various things, such as "GIRL" scratched into a miniature painting in her sister's dollhouse for like half a second. This show feels very in line with the same feel as Gone Girl, and is thankfully proving how shitty the Dark Places movie was.

    Second of all: I'm definitely a huge Gillian Flynn fan, and had no idea that she was off writing a fucking STEVE MCQUEEN FILM!! Has anyone seen the trailer for that? It looks like it's going to be so damn great.

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    Has anyone finished this yet? I loved the finale, but not sure if I can talk about it yet.

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    Yes! I loved it all the way through. Who needs True Detective?

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    Never read the book, called the ending on the second episode. Pretty good though. Let us hope fans don't try and force a made up sequel season like they did with Big Little Lies.

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    Still have to watch the finale. Will comment afterwards. Prolly won't get to it till tomorrow. Disappointed that I forgot the tidbit about the woman in white they dropped in the 2nd episode.

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    I think they stuck the landing. Can't figure out much that doesn't have an explanation. Just a brutal story. I don't want to spoil anything here yet, b/c the show just ended the other day.

    POSSIBLE SPOILERS POSSIBLE SPOILERS POSSIBLE SPOILERS POSSIBLE SPOILERS POSSIBLE SPOILERS POSSIBLE SPOILERS POSSIBLE SPOILERS















    Did Amma allow herself to be "treated" the way she was by her mom b/c she didn't know, or b/c she liked the attention/"love" from Adora, or as a cover for her actions? Or all of the above.

    Only thing I wasn't sure about was the drunken adult friend. Why didn't she every say anything? I'm not sure of what her reason was.

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    So I just blazed through this over the weekend. I thought it was incredibly good for about the first six episodes, maybe seven. It kinda reminded me of True Detective season one. I loved the slow pace, cinematography, the subtle sense of dread, all the cool atmospheric stuff. Even the credit sequence was really cool and stylish. The way the music was all used diagetically was really cool and helped you understand how this character uses music as an emotional vehicle. And the way they did the editing with the flashbacks was incredibly smooth and effective. I've never seen a movie or show that did flashbacks that seamlessly. It all helped you enter Camille's inner world. And of course, the acting was fucking phenomenal.

    But just like TD, they kind of botched the ending. I can sympathize with them wanting something thrilling and shocking for the finale, I just with they'd handled it with the same amount of skill as they did the early stuff. What was supposed to feel like this big payoff felt kind of cheap and sensationalized, like some kind of second-tier horror thriller from 2003. It's like they forgot everything that made the show special right there at the end. Still, I wouldn't say it ruined the overall experience for me at all, because I loved the rest of it so much. It was like a dream come true for people who are into southern gothic shit. I wish they made more stuff like this.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bobbie solo View Post
    Spoiler: Did Amma allow herself to be "treated" the way she was by her mom b/c she didn't know, or b/c she liked the attention/"love" from Adora, or as a cover for her actions? Or all of the above.
    Spoiler: I definitely don't think she liked the attention or the "love" from Adora because she was constantly complaining about her mom and feeling bored and trapped in Windgap. So I don't think she appreciated that kind of stiffing treatment. But even though Amma is obviously very dangerous to others, she's also spent her life being smothered and abused by her mother. She seems to fall back into a submissive dynamic with her mother that has been established for years. I actually loved how they handled all that, showing how someone can be horrifically abusive to others but also be a victim at the same time.

    Quote Originally Posted by bobbie solo View Post
    Spoiler: Only thing I wasn't sure about was the drunken adult friend. Why didn't she every say anything? I'm not sure of what her reason was.
    Spoiler: The friend had more of a conscience than many of the people in Windgap, but still, it only went so far. There's this recurring theme in the show of people who know that something bad is going on but they just look the other way because it's easier to pretend everything is fine. I mean, these are people that celebrate that fucking Confederate holiday thing like there's no problem. They don't exactly hold meaningful moral convictions. So the friend is a product of that culture. She's smarter than the rest and seems to realize that the small town pleasantries are just a facade to hide the rotten culture of that place. But she's also kind of cynical and complicit and not willing to go all the way to do what was necessary. She was a limited person. In the scene where Camille confronts her, she yells back, "Goddamnit, I did what I could." It's like she was different from everyone else there, but not quite different enough.

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    While Texas isn't exactly the SOUTH south (like the old south,) there are a LOT of similarities between Windgap and the town where I live.

    A lot of people here are well off from farming and cattle and such.
    And the snobbery, pettiness, gossip, hypocrisy, duplicity-all that stuff hit REALLY close to home, both in the book and the show.

    I love Gillian Flynn's work: I can't wait for.the new book.

    And i, for one, loved the series

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    Quote Originally Posted by elevenism View Post
    While Texas isn't exactly the SOUTH south (like the old south,) there are a LOT of similarities between Windgap and the town where I live.

    A lot of people here are well off from farming and cattle and such.
    And the snobbery, pettiness, gossip, hypocrisy, duplicity-all that stuff hit REALLY close to home, both in the book and the show.

    I love Gillian Flynn's work: I can't wait for.the new book.

    And i, for one, loved the series
    How does the book compare to the movie?

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    Quote Originally Posted by bobbie solo View Post
    Spoiler: Did Amma allow herself to be "treated" the way she was by her mom b/c she didn't know, or b/c she liked the attention/"love" from Adora, or as a cover for her actions? Or all of the above.
    Hey so I read this really interesting interview with Gillian Flynn on my lunch break today (here's the link if you're interested: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-f...nn-hbo-713667/ ) and came across this section that actually answered your question pretty conclusively (and totally negates what I had assumed in that post I made last night)...

    Spoiler: "For the benefit of people who didn’t read the book and have only that ending montage to go on: Adora was responsible for killing Marian with Munchausen by proxy, and was doing the same to the Natalie and Ann, but it’s Amma who went and killed them on her own?
    She wasn’t necessarily doing Munchausen by proxy — she was tending to [Natalie and Ann], and that made Amma very angry. Amma is the one who feels like she’s made that sacrifice. She has allowed herself to be sickened by Adora, and therefore she feels like her treating any other girls is a deep violation of that contract. And I don’t blame her in her child mind logic. That made her angry, so she sociopathically chooses to kill the girls."



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    Ah. Thanks @Mantra . Even more helpful than what I previously thought.

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    because of this show, i seriously can not stop listening to this fucking song. i'm obsessed.



    the soundtrack to this show really was incredible. man what a great show. think i might have to do a rewatch soon.

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    Great show.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mantra View Post
    How does the book compare to the movie?
    I mean, you know how it goes: apples and oranges.
    There is a WHOLE lot of internal dialogue in the book that adds more meaning and makes the world more real.

    But the show is VISUALLY stunning, which is something a book can't be, and layers of meaning and emotion are added in that manner.

    It's a pretty even trade off, although I'd argue that the book is a LITTLE more satisfying.

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    i'm on episode 4 right now. the show is actually more upsetting to me than the book was, surprisingly. maybe it's the visceral aspect of SEEING this stuff instead of imagining it (though usually my imagination is far worse than anything depicted on screen ends up being).

    my only dig is that trent & atticus should have scored the show. all the incidental music is amazing and the score isn't bad by any means, but i feel like with gone girl, TR&AR so perfectly captured the feeling of the world that gillian flynn had built, and they could have done an incredible job with this show.

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    The wife and I finished this show last night. She read the book, I have not. We both really liked it. I called part of the ending fairly earl on: Spoiler: that Adora was somehow involved, but I overestimated her involvement, assuming she'd also been killing the other girls in town, not just Marian. I did not expect the twist at the very end (the teeth being used for the ivory floor in the doll house). That was handled very well and was super creepy. At one point in the show I had wondered aloud if Amma could be the killer (around the time she shows up drunk on her roller skates while Richard and Camille were hanging out drinking) because she had this whole secret side of herself that she hid from adults, but as the show went on, I began to sympathize with her more and suspected her less, while my suspicions of Adora only grew stronger.

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    Quote Originally Posted by eversonpoe View Post
    i'm on episode 4 right now. the show is actually more upsetting to me than the book was, surprisingly. maybe it's the visceral aspect of SEEING this stuff instead of imagining it (though usually my imagination is far worse than anything depicted on screen ends up being)
    Yeah, it's a brutal show. Episode 3 was especially hard to get through. The whole story was so gruesome and sad.

    I assume they were really trying to emphasize just how violent self harm can be, which I respect, but man, some of those shots were viscerally uncomfortable for me to watch.

    But still, I think the show is kind of important. After it was all over, I thought to myself, "If I ever encounter someone looking to better understand what it means to battle with self harm, I'm just gonna tell them to watch this show."

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mantra View Post
    Yeah, it's a brutal show. Episode 3 was especially hard to get through. The whole story was so gruesome and sad.

    I assume they were really trying to emphasize just how violent self harm can be, which I respect, but man, some of those shots were viscerally uncomfortable for me to watch.

    But still, I think the show is kind of important. After it was all over, I thought to myself, "If I ever encounter someone looking to better understand what it means to battle with self harm, I'm just gonna tell them to watch this show."
    yeah, i was a cutter in high school (among other forms or self harm) so that kind of stuff is always extremely upsetting to me, but also so relatable.

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