Why ‘Sharp Objects’ Is Different

Content warning: This article contains descriptions/discussions of self-harm, parental abuse, and suicide.

It’s been a few years now since Sharp Objects debuted on HBO and I still can’t get it out of my mind. Marketed as a similar series to HBO’s hugely successful Big Little Lies (mostly because the two shared a director), it didn’t gain that much traction or attention, despite getting three nominations at the Emmys and even winning a Golden Globe for Patricia Clarkson’s tightly-wound performance. I didn’t watch it when it first aired, either. I saw relatively little about it online, but was always interested in seeing how it panned out, mostly because of Amy Adams and Sophia Lillis. I watched it when it was over and done with, hoping to binge the whole thing in a few days and be done with it.

It did not take me a few days and I am not done with it.

Sharp Objects is the most difficult TV show I have ever watched. There are gorier, more problematic shows that gratuitously showcase violence against women (I’m looking at you Criminal Minds, but I see you too, Game of Thrones), but never has such violence been the point of said shows. I don’t mean to suggest that Sharp Objects wants to paint its women as pain pumps that repeatedly get attacked, harassed, and manipulated, because it keeps most of the trauma that we see on screen happened in the past and is done mostly artfully, not explicitly. That doesn’t mean we don’t see it, but it does mean that the show is trying to pull its characters scars to the fore, instead of the physical act of violence that got them there.

Those scars are best exemplified by the shocking images of Camille’s skin. It’s easy to forget that they’re actually treated as a very big deal – it’s the cliffhanger at the end of the first episode – given how status quo it feels once it’s revealed. I frequently describe the series (after giving a content warning) as a murder mystery about a detective who practices self-harm, even if that’s not exactly what the show is. Regardless of how I describe the show to my friends, these scars are a much-talked about aspect of the general mood of the series but they only appear at very specific times. This is not self-harm porn – the camera doesn’t ogle the scars or even try to make them look deafeningly ugly. They’re just there, slashed all over Camille’s skin.

Fascinatingly, the scars spell out words (which give the episodes their names), giving the series a motif around language. Some of the most jarring moments are when we see things that certainly aren’t there – the word “dirt” caked in dust on Camille’s car or little Marion sitting in a chair as Camille walks by. These flashes are unnerving to watch, but more emphatically, they put us into a mental place that is not our own. We get seduced into seeing the world as Camille sees it (which I suspect is why the show is never quite as special when she’s not around). This is also why there is only diegetic sound – we get trained only to hear what everyone in the world can hear, whether that’s the hum of crickets or the eerie tones of The Acid’s “Tumbling Lights.”

(Sidebar: I’m going to gush about the show’s use of “Tumbling Lights” for a second. First of all, the song itself is wonderfully atmospheric in a high-key creepy way. I’m a big fan of it as a stand-alone thing. Second, it’s appearance at the end of the first episode is when I knew I was never going to stop thinking about this show. We initially only hear it come out of one speaker, but when Camille puts her other headphone in, we hear it out of both, which is just a wonderful bit of sound editing. And then as the humming crescendos into a terrifying buzz, it cuts to the credits just in sync with the driving beat. That’s how you end a pilot.)

Basically, the show gives itself a plethora of ways to put us in Camille’s head. We get flashes of words, flashes of people, sound only from diegetic sources, and – most alarmingly of all – painful extended flashbacks linked to things she sees in the present. The third episode, “Fix” – which is probably the most difficult thing I have ever watched – makes those flashbacks the driving force of its messaging. Spent chronicling Camille’s time at a rehabilitation center for people that have self-harmed, it builds up an honest-to-goodness positive relationship for her, only to snatch it all away. Alice’s suicide is probably the most disturbing thing I have seen on television because it feels like a completely genuine loss of a human being. I’ve watched this whole series multiple times now and this episode always turns my stomach. Sharp Objects deeply, deeply cares about its characters getting violated, which makes it as exceedingly dark as it is. There are no spots of light in this world, despite the beautiful glow that permeates pretty much every shot, and there is serious hurt everywhere.

The hurt permeates the apocryphal flower girl, Amma. The best parts of the show are when Amma’s relationship with Camille takes center stage, which necessitates investment in Adora, who ends up being pivotal to the development of both characters. Amma is another Marion, at least at first. Camille feels responsible to get her away from her mother, who looks as if she will care for her daughter to death. She’s positioned more as a mother than a sister to Amma, but when she sinks into a sisterly relationship – as she does sporadically – it’s clear that Camille just wants to fit into her sister’s lovely life. Adora loves Amma, but Adora hates Camille. The dynamics between these three women infuse the show with it coldest, most impactful moments and are helped immensely by the powerful performances Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, and Eliza Scanlon turn in.

(Sidebar: I actually think Eliza Scanlon goes underappreciated for her work on this show. She is convincingly childish, manipulative, and alluring all at once. The writing forces her to play both overly innocent and overly experienced, which is a jarring choice, but Scanlon makes it work better than it has any right to. I look forward to seeing where her career takes her.)

As Camille shifts between caring for and being cared for – in a surprising number of complex and nuanced ways – the story finds its center. People weren’t thrilled with the ending of the final episode because it’s so abrupt, but Amma’s final line highlights all of the important things about the series. “Don’t tell mama” is the only way the series could end – as a reminder of how good things go bad, how violence hides itself right in front of us, and of the necessity of growing into an independent person. Adora suffocates every person she has a relationship with, most especially her children, because she ‘cares too much,’ as the show would like us to think. She’s a dark, sinister person, but it’s all hidden under satin, silk, and frills.

Jean-Marc Vallee’s work as a director helps turn the softness into harshness. He turns whirling fans into extraordinarily menacing objects, even though they provide relief in the burning Missouri summer. Everything on screen in positively bursting with energy, but at the same time, there are clearly discrete boundaries. Think of Adora’s room – Camille lingers at the threshold, too afraid to step onto her mother’s beautiful floors, even though it’s just another place for her to stand. He achieves an incredible feat in making each character, prop, and location feel both integral to the others and locked in a world of its own. Sure, he keeps the pace of the mystery plodding along, but the point isn’t to find out who killed the little girls. It’s to unwind the mystery of why this particular Southern society is such a dangerous place to live, especially for women.

While unorthodox for a crime-inflected show to shift its focus away from the built-in “whodunnit” narrative, it allows everyone involved – the writers, the actors, the designers, and even Jean-Marc Vallee – to go beyond the thrills of the murder mystery. That’s part of the reason mystery exists in the first place – it should never be about figuring out who did it for the sake of pulling off a good twist, but for the sake of revealing the person and the situation responsible for the destruction of human life. Sharp Objects knows this, and for that, it is one of the most compelling mysteries to air on television.