More than anything else, this series is a tour de force by David Tennant. I have been constantly amazed by David Tennant on stage, mostly in RSC productions: Richard II, hamlet, etc. But Des is something else; his portrayal of the serial killer has a steeliness that one does not expect, yet eminently plausible. Does it look staged? Yes. But staged as in life, when people do present a staged appearance to the world, to mask their vulnerability, their trauma, or their criminal insecurity .
I am particularly struck by the unlikely stylistic connection between a Shakespearean character and the portrayal of a real-life psychopath: is it in the icy countenance? The erect yet natural posture? The articulate enunciation? Tennant is taking a chance here; he could very well be faulted for "carrying over" his stage mannerism into a context where it may look out of place. But that observation would have been wrong. Des IS an act, committed with a blunt force and sometimes comically abrupt certainty that seem, well, Shakespearean.
Do we "understand" Des? No, but that's to the series' credit rather than discredit. Too often true crime books and movies fall into the cliches of attributing psychopathic behaviors to socio-economic causes, which is misleading, and trivializes their horrors. "Des" doesn't explain; it repects the audience well enough to leave it to our imaginations, our sense of the inexplicable, and our non-identifying, non-forgiving empathy, but empathy nonetheless. Thank you, David Tennant.
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