Is Sweetpea the new American Psycho?
Ella Purnell moves from Yellowjackets to another blood-soaked TV series, and she's the one responsible for the bloodshed.
Yellowjackets star Ella Purnell steps into a major TV lead role this week with the arrival on Sky Atlantic of Sweetpea. Based on a book by CJ Skuse, it follows a seemingly innocent young woman who finds herself surrounded by blood when her quiet life unravels into violence.
Purnell has made her name with slightly prickly material, including Yellowjackets, Zack Snyder's zombie movie Army of the Dead, the Fallout TV series, and her voice role as Jinx in the Netflix animated series Arcane. All of this has pushed Purnell into the perfect spot to take on the complex lead role as Rhiannon in Sweetpea.
Sweetpea has been positioned in its marketing as a "coming of rage story", with Rhiannon fighting back against those she deems to have wronged her. Fans have compared the character, on both the page and the screen, to Patrick Bateman from American Psycho — played on the big screen, of course, by Christian Bale in 2000.
There are certainly similarities between the two stories, with both depicting people in broadly dull office careers who wield blades and channel their frustrations with life into brutal murder.
In Hayley Spencer's review of Sweetpea for the Evening Standard, she wrote that the American Psycho comparison only scratches the surface. She wrote: "Purnell’s Rhiannon has been called the female Patrick Bateman. But that would be to underestimate Purnell’s range – she manages to make serial killing *almost* relatable. And it is a very British psycho story in so far as it never gets too bleak, thanks to the dead-pan humour."
Read more: American Psycho producer Edward R. Pressman shares secrets of the cult film on its 20th anniversary (Yahoo Entertainment)
Elsewhere, Spencer wrote that the show's lurches between brutal violence and pitch-black comedy made it "undefinable in genre, but simply brilliant TV". The Guardian referred to it as a "fun, darkly comic gorefest", reflecting the balance between tones at the heart of the story. Even in a more mixed review, The Telegraph explained that the show is "slick and stylish and well worth a couple of hours of your time".
Purnell herself has spoken about the unusual feel of a morally murky and tonally nimble story like this being told about a female character, rather than a man like Patrick Bateman. She explained to IndieWire that "female empowerment does seem threatening to some people".
She added: "It’s like the boogeyman: it’s terrifying because we don’t know what it looks like. There is something about female rage that feels incredibly raw and untapped. It’s something we don’t see very often. It’s something that we don’t allow ourselves to feel very often, certainly don’t allow ourselves to express as often as we might feel it."
Read more: Sweetpea’s Ella Purnell Swears She’s “Well-Adjusted” Despite Killer Role: “It Does Haunt Me” (Deadline)
Sweetpea certainly showcases Rhiannon making use of her female rage, though she's anything but a hero in the story told by the eight-part series. This is the sort of role in which Purnell thrives, so it could be a truly star-making performance.
Sweetpea has certainly wowed the critics thus far, scoring a perfect 100% approval on Rotten Tomatoes from its first seven reviews. Along with its BookTok bedfellow A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, Sweetpea shows that female-led stories from the bookshelves of social media devotees have real legs on the small screen.
Read more: Fallout star Ella Purnell "cannot wait" for season 2, but she doesn't know when filming is going to start yet (Total Film)
With a whole swathe of further BookTok-built adaptations on the way in the next few years — including Freida McFadden's The Housemaid and Colleen Hoover's Reminders of Him — it seems the TV and movie industries are pinning all of their hopes on the army of young and very online readers. If the result is shows like Sweetpea, then that's a good thing.
Sweetpea is available now to watch in full via Sky and NOW.