'Tales From The Loop' review: A poetic and melancholy sci-fi anthology that has people at its heart
It's not an easy task to craft a television show from artwork. Based on Simon Stålenhag's work, Nathaniel Halpern's 'Tales From The Loop' is a wistful and melancholy 8-part series that explains a series of strange events in a sleepy old town, which is built around a research facility, called the Loop. As Jonathan Pryce's character Russ explains at the start of the show, the purpose of the Loop is to unlock the mysteries of the universe. You expect a sci-fi show to benefit greatly from some heavy exposition. However, the story is left unexplained, which has its benefits, but also leaves you a tad perplexed at times. Stay clued in, and don't miss the finer details.
Though on the surface each episode appears standalone and disconnected, they're all connected and the story is woven around the larger picture of the residents of the town. A minor background character of one episode becomes the protagonist of another. This perhaps is a way to demonstrate that nobody is a 'minor' character, and everyone has a story to tell, and is a protagonist.
Time is a peculiar concept in this town, as the show simultaneously traverses across the past as well as the present. At its outset, the show has a sedate sci-fi premise--the secret lab explores the properties of the universe. At the center of the lab, a magical orb exists that can alter the space-time continuum. Robots are just casually hanging about town without much purpose. But they exist,
But that's just the premise. The heart of the story lies in the complicated relationships between people, specificially parents and their children. In the first episode, a young girl, Loretta (Abby Ryder Fortson), comes home to find her mother fighting with someone. He's accusing her of stealing a crystal from the orb from the Loop.
Later, when Loretta asks her mother Alma about this, she reveals that 'it was not stealing', and that in fact, she was going to return it. However, one day Loretta finds her mother missing. In a haunting dream, she sees Alma floating upwards in the sky.
Later, a boy named Cole (Duncan Joiner) and his mother (Rebecca Hall) try to help her out. Another episode focuses on the relationship between Cole and his grandfather Russ, who is slowly dying. There are no dramatics, it's a quiet revelation. Cole shouts into a hollow structure, and the voices he hears represent the various stages of life.
His grandfather's voice does not echo. Russ tries to explain what happens to a person when they die, as Cole hasn't quite understood the implications of death. Meanwhile, there are tensions circulating between Russ and his daughter-in-law Loretta (Hall), a star employee at the lab. Hidden behind the technological superiority, lies the human matters of resignation, loneliness, giving up and the beauty of essential communication with the ones we love.
'Tales From The Loop's eerie silence, music and visuals are the strength of the show, along with Hall and Pryce leading the show forward. The episodes are slowly paced, with lingering shots on the scenery like the snowy landscapes, or a child trying the taste of rain.
'Tales From The Loop' is streaming on Amazon Prime.