Petra Hammesfahr
the sinner

The Sinner is a crime TV series inspired by the novel of the same name by German author Petra Hammesfahr.

That said, trying not to spoil too much, I would first focus on the unnecessary praise of the protagonist of the first season, and also executive producer, Jessica Biel! There's little and yet too much to say about the masterful performance of this former sibling of that large batch of Reverend Eric Camden's children in the 90s series "7th Heaven"... she's come a long way since then and, in The Sinner, she appears in all her brazen maturity. Her gaze, movements, and the exaltation of a catatonic state that many cannot achieve are textbook. The expressions, the dark circles, the hair, that healthy perversion of small-town America all imprinted on the emaciated body for the role, of Biel!

There's this woman, a typical dissatisfied wife and mother, who at a certain point, folks, loses it, but not like anyone might under a bit of stress, she literally goes out of her mind when she hears a song and... becomes a murderer. So far so good, if it weren't for the fact that from this dramatic and, believe me, bloody event, a raw and psychological thriller unfolds over eight splendid episodes that keeps you glued to the damn armchair!

Another character with a thousand "facets" enters the scene: Detective Harry Ambrose, who is none other than the legendary Bill Pullman, who, as his surname also suggests, storms into the story just like a bus launched at full speed into a crowd, and he does so with a series of mental disorders that a task force of psychologists wouldn't suffice!

What does Ambrose do? He devastates a case that seems already solved (much to the discontent of his superiors) and begins to dig barehanded with "squeezed fingers" into the mind of poor Cora Tannetti (Biel), almost scouring her brain, but always with a single purpose: to understand the motive and, let's say it, to comprehend others' paranoias to understand his own.

I don't think it's necessary to analyze the other characters who, although very important, are a splendid frame to the picture that these two actors form together as the drama unfolds.

Cinematography that remains serenely unsettling, landscapes that always remind you of how some American woods can stink of corpses, and, lastly, a soundtrack that stays in your head that not even 10 consecutive binges would be enough to get rid of it.

There's also a second season that has nothing to envy the first. A different story but still intimate and fabulously distressing. Waiting for the third, in the hope of few disappointments.

Enjoy watching and don't set the song as your ringtone because I already have it!