1 hour ago
3
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed ★★★★
The title and jumping-off point for this new series from David Gordon Green (The Sex Lives of College Girls, Scarpetta) might be salacious, but Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is part stress-inducing whodunit, part dark comedy.
Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) is Paula, a recently divorced mum and magazine fact-checker in the midst of a custody battle over her nine-year-old daughter Hazel (Nola Wallace). The series opens with Paula seeking some “solace” in an online “cam boy” chat, and while she does use her time with “Trevor” (Brandon Flynn) for maximum pleasure, she spends most of her allotted hour chatting with him; he’s almost a defacto therapist, albeit one who gets his pecs out.
During one of these calls, Trevor answers a knock at his door, and is brutally beaten by a masked attacker. While most of us would assume this to be a scam, Paula is – at least initially – convinced Trevor is in danger, and duly reports it to the cops (the brilliantly dry Dolly de Leon as Detective Sofia Gonzalez and Jon Michael Hill as Detective Baxter), who initially dismiss her, warning her it’s a scam and not to respond to any follow-up phone calls.
Naturally, Paula responds to one of these calls and decides to undertake an investigation, drawing on her professional fact-checking skills.
But things rapidly get messy, and soon Paula becomes both murder suspect and amateur sleuth, enmeshed in a complicated criminal conspiracy, and facing more twists and turns than an hour with a cam boy. Then there’s the mysterious Dennis – played by Murray Bartlett (last seen in the awful Nine Perfect Strangers, but we won’t hold that against him) – in a much less morally ambiguous role than we’re used to seeing him; he’s a flat-out monster here.
It’s a novel hook for a crime thriller; we’re more accustomed to seeing sex workers as women and those who access their services as men – and usually bad men, to boot. Here, the sex workers are young men, their clients are mostly women, and you’ll find yourself cheering these cam boys on.
Which is what Paula sets out to prove – she just wants justice for her cam boy! All while trying to maintain her image as a “soccer mom”, volunteering to coach her kid’s team, panic-baking cakes and trying to reason with her ex Karl (Jake Johnson) and his passive-aggressive girlfriend Mallory (Barry’s Jessy Hodges), who want to move to Idaho and take Hazel with them. While we might not all have sex hotline men to save, Paula’s other work-life issues are relatable.
Tonally, it seems at first a weird choice to mix family custody drama with black comedy-thriller, but trust me, it works; once Paula enlists the help of Gen Z co-workers Geri (Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg), who has her own agenda for getting involved, and slacker Rudy (Charlie Hall), who is less than convinced that it’s a good idea, any moments of potential mawkishness are balanced out by snappy banter and tea-spilling. Geri and Rudy lend a hipster edge to the series’ Scooby-Doo gang vibes, and as the three get deeper into the mystery, there are shades of the excellent series Search Party here.
Maslany is cracking as the conflicted lead trying to rebuild her family, and while there’s violence aplenty, there’s no shortage of black humour and wryly delivered lines, particularly as Paula navigates school mums, disbelieving cops, and judgment from Karl and Mallory.
And the mystery at the heart is compelling; I can confirm that pleasure is indeed guaranteed.
