Sharp Objects: Small-town America and hysterical women on the verge of something

After seven long weeks of self-harm, repression and inappropriate s*******, Sharp Objects is nearly over. Tonight is the penultimate episode and it doesn’t let up its ominous creep.

It’s easy to catch up, should you long for sinister distraction from your own life. Based on a novel by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, the central character is Camille Preaker (Amy Adams). She’s a journalist at a newspaper in the Chicago suburbs who has returned to her home town, Wind Gap, Missouri (not a real place), to report on the murder of one girl and the disappearance of another.

This is classic America, where the waitresses wear frilly aprons and pour bottomless filter coffee to cops, and the clapboard houses have roomy porches. But behind the pastel colours are deep-set neuroses straight out of a Tennessee Williams play.

Camille is a troubled soul who has spent time in a psychiatric hospital and carves words into her skin — could they be clues to the murder?

It’s a bravura performance by Adams, who plays Camille with remarkable intensity, somehow carrying out her job despite being in a permanently pissed stupour — she’s twisted, with a tiny bit of the innocent in her clamouring to get out. She still looks great, with dewy skin and thick hair — remarkable, considering she subsists on double vodkas and cigarettes. Tonight she crosses a line, between her private and professional life. It’s been a long time coming.

This show has been compared to Big Little Lies (it has the same director, Jean-Marc Vallée). It also has strong female leads over the age of 30 but that’s where the similarities end. This is more Gothic, the beautiful ocean scenes replaced by dingy bars, the heroes replaced with guilty men hiding secrets who “tried self-help books but drinking was easier” and don’t care if they live or die. No one is entirely likeable, and you long for a hero from a British crime show to whip them into shape.

What stops it from being a relentless miseryfest are the interactions, which feel relatable even if you aren’t a hallucinating, jaded husk. Camille’s relationship with her mother Adora (Patricia Clarkson) is a highlight.

She revels in tending to her daughter, even when it’s because she’s been blind drunk — “Momma” will clean her up, put her in a pristine white nightie and spoon-feed her medicine. Camille pretends not to find this comforting, insisting that she has a deadline to meet. Typical journalist. Adora is a serial carer, and when Camille’s half-sister falls ill Adora can’t conceal her delight.

The show has taken its toll on Adams, apparently — it’s too bleak even for her. Despite good ratings there won’t be a second series, partly because Adams can’t bear to go back to her character. It comes as some relief that it won’t be drawn out — it feels like this series has been long and grim enough without knowing we are in for more of same.

There’s a tension between the show wanting to be politically correct and the condition of women. On the one hand women are presented as, as one man says, “drunken s****” who will backstab anyone to get media attention, smother the people they love to have purpose and struggle with their condition.

On the other, the younger generation are more politically correct. Two rollerskating girls tick off the moustachioed local police chief for telling them that “some drunk man may come hit you”. They retort: “Or she could. Don’t be sexist, chief.” The police chief provides light relief, listening to dreamy Fifties pop in his car and flirting with all the hysterical, alcoholic women in the town.

This is escapism noir and what it lacks in pace it makes up for in impressive performances. Just make sure you are feeling emotionally stable.

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