Why is “Baby Reindeer” the hit of the year?

There are few plays, series or films that hit home, that without expecting it rise among the most watched and become unstoppable word of mouth, a welcome surprise. It happened with “What the river does” of the Marull sisters in theater and “Barbenheimer” in cinema, as artistic pieces that debuted without imagining how far they would be able to go. And the same is true for the British “Baby Reindeer,” which was launched on Netflix on April 11 and has continued to be a trending topic, number one on the platform and a topic of conversation at every meeting there is.

How to outline an explanation for the phenomenon? The factors are several. It is a disturbing series that captivates from the moment the bombastic, carefree and as verbose as irresistible protagonist emerges, played by the odd Jessica Gunning as Martha Scott. She is harmful, shameless, coiled, persistent, rough and capable of being hated and loved.

Performances

The first attraction lies in the performances, from its creator and protagonist Richard Gadd like Donny, as loser as he is lovable, harmless, endearing and a good person, who pities his stalker before himself, who feeds that toxic and suffocating circle that has him trapped with no way out. There they stay and manifest his traumas.

Both strain this uncontrollable bond to which they return again and again, like a Stockholm syndrome. Of the rest of the cast, the performances of the Mexican actress Nava Nau as his trans girlfriend Teri, Tom Goodman as the abusive screenwriter Darrien, Thomas Coombes as the bureaucratic and useless police officer and those who play those terrible parents, Amanda Root and Mark Lewis Jones.

Based on a real case

That it is the story of its creator and protagonist, Richard Gadd, is another of the points that put it at the top. Although what the public is looking for is a good story, when they know that it is based on a real event or find out about it, the attraction for the content is enhanced.

Repercussions of the real protagonists

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When the series is at its peak, the multiplication of news regarding its true protagonists adds interest. As happened in all the seasons of “The Crown” or the documentary “Harry and Megan”, whose releases were followed by scandals and all kinds of accusations from the British crown, or at a local level it is enough to remember the multiple statements and crosses after the series of Fito Páez or more recently Guillermo Coppola.

When a series awakens repercussions around the inner or peripheral circle, the audience is enchanted by fiction and real scandal. There were several women who came out to say that they were the “real harassers,” and another claimed to be the “stalked victim.” Argentine cases also appeared that are compared to the series.

Complaint

At the end of each chapter, information is provided if you experience harassment or abuse. The series is raw and explicit when it came to showing repeated rapes of its protagonist by a screenwriter who promised him fame while both systematically indulged in drugs that left the victim on the verge of unconsciousness. It is the strongest episode of the series and without a doubt it exposes the brutality in the face of the impossibility of being able to escape.

That morphological compulsion to keep knocking on the rapist’s door “I would like to say that I never went back, but that wasn’t the case,” until at the end his truth arrives in the face of that twisted modality: “he loved hating me more than loving me.” The series portrays abuse of all kinds, on the body, the psyche and the integrity.

Poetics

The series is so brilliant that it achieves sublime moments of metaphors and poetry despite the ordeal it portrays. It is a case of resilience, so fashionable these days, that comes with that release on stage, moving and brutal.

Fame

From that monologue the protagonist leaps to success after going viral, he is invited to every program that exists, receives support from followers and seems to touch the sky with his hands. Until his stalker plunges him back into hell and obsession with his messages. However, he discovers that what he so believed he was looking for in life was not what he wanted either.

A title that is understood in the last five minutes

The peculiar title, “Baby Reindeer,” which responds to the way the stalker calls the protagonist, is fully understood in the final minutes of the series, in a leap into the transformative void. It is the perfect moment in which the viewer will say “now I understand everything.”