REVIEW: Baby Reindeer [2024]

Rating: TV-MA | Episodes: 7 | Runtime: 30 minutes
Release Date: April 11th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Netflix
Creator(s): Richard Gadd

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First things first: If there is any potential that a show dealing with trauma, sexual abuse, and gender dysphoria might trigger a bad reaction, you should research what it is that Richard Gadd’s “Baby Reindeer” is about. This is a based-on-a-true-story adaptation of the writer/star/comedian’s own experiences being stalked between 2015 and 2017 as well as the events that occurred previously and during that period which helped facilitate his part in said crime. Gadd lets it all out both dramatically in the show’s telling and cathartically in a showstopping scene during the penultimate episode. He holds nothing back.

While many people creating work in this vein ultimately find audiences snarkily telling them to “get a therapist,” you can tell Gadd has spent the work and time mining his experience to a point where he can objectively and compassionately talk about the subject in a real way. The character Donny Dunn (played by Gadd) is cognizant to the fact that he wasn’t wholly innocent insofar as letting Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning) latch on. And while she is unequivocally the perpetrator and a dangerous figure considering her past and expertise, he doesn’t paint her as some one-dimensional villain. She’s a victim too. Maybe not quite his victim, but a victim just the same.

And that’s “Baby Reindeer’s” true success. It’s ability to draw out revelations with each episode in a way that exposes how we can never really know the suffering of others. Does that excuse them from the consequences of their actions? No. Hurt people might hurt people, but two wrongs do not equal a right. This incident is thus less about the threat that Martha poses and more about how her presence in Donny’s life forces him to reevaluate what he’s been through and who he is (as opposed to who he wishes he was). It’s through that journey that he discovers he’s not all that different from her … not when you strip away her unfortunate mental instability.

There’s an authenticity to his character’s progression that makes it so every new discovery resonates with context and complexity rather than merely as a cliffhanger twist meant to excite. Every supporting player possesses a duality as a result—becoming both a mirror and a contrast to who Donny is and what he wants. Tom Goodman-Hill’s Darrien epitomizes Donny’s dream and nightmare. Nava Mau’s Teri serves as an example of someone Donny can love as well as a person with the confidence to own her identity that he can aspire to match in himself. Even the toxically male co-workers he strives to hide behind simultaneously give him a disguise to wield and a target to abhor.

Gadd’s performance is as good as his scripts. Yes, he lived it, but that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily in a position to reenact it. And not just the interactions with an ever-unraveling Martha either. There’s the sweet awkwardness of living rent-free with the mother of his ex-girlfriend (Nina Sosanya’s Liz) as a surrogate son. There are the frustratingly combative interactions with police who can’t do anything (Thomas Coombes’ Daniels) and those who can if Donny stops getting in their way (Alexandria Riley’s Culver). It ultimately comes down to Gadd’s ability to exude the shame that drives this character both through the good times and bad. A shame that prevents him from helping himself by often ensuring there’s no escape.

No matter how good he is at mining his own trauma, however, not even he can compare to the performance delivered by Gunning. Yes, the writing allows for a lot of space where complicity is involved (Gadd’s unwavering honesty does let him admit his role in feeding Martha’s delusions), but a less worthy actor could have still rendered this stalker loathsome and malicious instead of pitiable and tragic. It helps too that Mau’s Teri (a therapist) never lets Donny (or us) forget that Martha cannot help herself. That she’s a sick woman. Pair it with Gunning’s heartbreaking pathos and the frightening turns towards rage she also supplies land with a perfect mix of astonishment and sadness.

My only hope is that people don’t decide they too can strike it rich by dramatizing their horror-filled pasts. This success should prove that time and perspective can help people understand what happened to them in a way that helps them move forward rather than keep them frozen in place. It’s Gadd’s candor and self-awareness that shines through because both allow him to remember “Martha” as a flawed figure deserving of our sympathy regardless of the pain she caused. Because that’s the hope we all have when stumbling to find ourselves hurting the ones we love. It isn’t about forgiveness or second chances, though. It’s about understanding. It’s about knowing the pain that drives them is the same as that which drives you.