Who did not love to hate the nurse Ratched? We are talking about one of the most famous villains in the history of cinema, the cruel foreman of the psychiatric hospital of that masterpiece of cinema that was - and remains - One flew over the cuckoo's nest (1975) by Miloš Forman, based on the novel of the same name by Ken Kesey and winner of five Academy Awards. The counterpart of the savage Mac (played in the film by Jack Nicholson), Louise Fletcher portrayed for the silver screen this cruel, hypocritical and evil woman, a metaphor for the corruption of power (however small it is) and the tyranny of institutions, in a performance a scream that earned her the Oscar for Best Actress in 1976 and a place of honor among the greatest villains of cinema.
But who was Nurse Ratched before? What about his past, eluded by his own creator? The "King Midas" of American seriality Ryan Murphy try to answer with Ratched, his new series for Netflix centered on the past of the wicked nurse, here interpreted by the always suitable Sarah Paulson, one of the most assiduous collaborators of the TV giant since American Horror Story.
It is not what it seems
In post-World War II America, between the views of the Californian west coast, the essential Wright-like architectures and the flavor of Cain's hard-boiled books, our protagonist moves, a cold calculator with a mysterious objective that sneaks her arts into the personal of an innovative psychiatric hospital run by the visionary and damaged Dr. Hanover (Jon Jon Briones). Mildred Ratched introduces herself as the perfect, prepared, compassionate and attentive nurse, but the woman hides more than one secret and a secret mission linked to the arrival at the facility of a dangerous serial killer (Finn Wittrock).
Recently Ryan Murphy seems to prefer costume melodrama, dusted here and there by an LGBT poetic with mixed results. As with the previous Netflix Hollywood series, Murphy investigates the contradictions of America at the height of glory and economic well-being, moving however from a reinterpretation of the Hollywood studio system and its myths to a fictional character made immortal by the film machine. Ratched claims to tell the genesis of a movie monster and at the same time underline the problems and manias of America under the Truman presidency: intolerance, racism, misogyny and a basic cruelty. An admirable and intriguing project, considering that the character of Ratched, despite her echo in the collective imagination, has rarely been dusted off. Then go on to add the recent fashion of the villain origin stories, and the series could only become one of the most anticipated of 2020.
Ratched, however, is one of the most disappointing products of Murphy's filmography for several reasons, first of all his enormous wasted potential: the series does not maintain the quality of its first two episodes, it evolves in a disorganized and uninteresting way, the homosexual subtext seems to be forced into it and moreover obscures the true centers of interest of the story. In spite of Paulson's performance, Mildred Ratched remains a tarnished character, of whom one cannot get a satisfactory idea. This would not be bad if it were not for the fact that the growth of the character has such radical and absurd turns that it quickly gets lost in the organism of the story.
The film noir references are pleasing, the production values enchanting, and the sumptuous and capable cast with great female performers (from Cynthia Nixon to Judy Davis with bright cameos by an ever-formidable Sharon Stone), but the series sometimes lapses into familiar choices. , including the over-the-top violence attributable to American Horror Story and unsuitable for a 50s costume melodrama.
It is not clear what to do with Ratched: as an origin story it is a poorly realized pretext, as melodrama it is chaotic, and as a horror series it is vaguely banal. Sure, if you take these elements and combine them, Ratched also becomes enjoyable, but it doesn't fulfill the promise and potential of a series that should have been among the TV titles of the year and should have given new light to one of the most appreciated and villains complexes of the history of cinema. Give the series another chance with the second season? Honestly, the doubt remains.
