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Wayward ★★★½ (Netflix)
This time, it’s official: you’re terrible, Evelyn. In this knotty American mystery-thriller Muriel’s Wedding star Toni Collette plays Evelyn Wade, the beatific administrator of a facility for troubled teenagers whose desire to help is confronting.
Mae Martin as Alex Dempsey and Toni Collette as Evelyn Wade in Wayward.Credit: Michael Gibson/Netflix
“Most people go their entire lives without a proper hug,” Evelyn will declare, embracing someone she’s just met and then never truly letting go. With a serene smile and sadistic instincts, Evelyn is that modern monster writ large: the wellness guru. Collette masterfully draws every drop of malevolence from the role.
Steadily revealed, Evelyn is the show’s fulcrum, seen at wildly different angles by the other characters. For police officer Alex Dempsey (Mae Martin, the show’s creator), Evelyn is the mentor to his now-pregnant partner, Laura Redman (Sarah Gadon), who turned Laura’s life around years ago at the Tall Pines Academy. For Canadian teens Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Abbie (Sydney Topliffe), newly arrived at Tall Pines after the besties’ rebellious phase sapped their parents’ patience, Evelyn is the smiling prison warden looking to break them.
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Martin, a former stand-up comedian who previously made the uneasy comic-drama Feel Good, has engineered a deceptively ambitious show. What you might think is obvious is just the beginning. Yes, Evelyn’s self-belief is troubling, the town of Tall Pines is far too idyllic and the Academy’s set-up is questionable. But the narrative then adds in new elements, genres and twisting personal dynamics. There are looming conspiracies, jailbreak planning and lashings of horror. The ramifications gnaw away: is healing someone really just a means of controlling them?
There are echoes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Rosemary’s Baby, but the writing is particularly good when it comes to the bonds that tie people together. Set in 2003 – the lack of mobile phones adds to the isolation – Wayward never forgets that Leila and Abbie are teenagers, complete with misjudged priorities and rituals that Tall Pines systematically strips away. The relationship between Alex, a transgender man, and Sarah also has a friction sharpened by looming parenthood and shifting priorities.
Toni Collette as Evelyn Wade and Joshua Close as Duck in Wayward.Credit: Netflix
Though Wayward may be several interesting shows instead of one precise production, it does have a compelling glue to hold it together. Collette brings Evelyn’s purpose to life not with a villain’s pleasure but a zealot’s certainty. She’s convinced she’s doing the right thing and coolly exults in her methods. With Leila and Abbie as terrified lightning rods, group therapy sessions for the Tall Pines students have the bile and frenzy of a cult’s indoctrination. “Converge,” commands Evelyn, and the battered participants form a single writhing entity. Collette makes Wayward hum.
