The HBO Max series The Staircase has double pressure to deal with. On the one hand, telling the well-known case of the death of Kathleen Peterson analyzed in dozens of different aspects for more than a decade. At the other extreme, that of building a plausible narrative about the different dimensions of a crime that is still an enigma. But between both things, the production must also find its personality. Moving away from Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s 2004 documentary to delve into what no one is supposed to know about the crime. In other words, reinvent itself as an independent narrative.

Despite the ambition of creator Antonio Campos, The Staircase does not satisfy the idea of a new account of a notorious fact. The reconstruction has something of late deja vu. Also, pieces were conveniently assembled to imitate the successful 2004 documentary without success.

The result is an unconvincing mix of the unavoidable notion of understanding the motive for murder and something more confusing. Why would someone be able to kill? Are we all capable of doing it? The argument is not asked out loud, but it hints that its purpose is to unravel such a dilemma. And to do so, from Manichaean positions or the perception that the guilty party is an obvious figure in the context of the story.

After all, it could be. The high-profile murder case of Kathleen Peterson has considerable resonance in pop culture. The dilemma of the murderer who hides in the circle of relatives became a procedural nightmare in what seemed like an accident. Michael Peterson, who claimed that his wife had died in the middle of an unfortunate event, became a circumstantial criminal. HBO Max’s version with The Staircase turns the horror transition from a painful incident to a full-fledged legal battle. And also, in an ambiguous conception of reality. Do you have graduations to blame? Can a murderer deny his responsibility so many times as to create a new scenario?

Again and again, a crime with two voices

Kathleen Peterson (Toni Collette) slips down a staircase and dies after hitting her head. She is the version of her husband Michael (Colin Firth) and everything seems to coincide with her explanations. After all, the scene of the event responds to the meticulous details of the worried bereaved about what happened. Or not? The HBO Max series plays with the idea of building a kaleidoscope that links to various versions of Kathleen’s death. And most of them lead to Michael. To the cracks of the version of him, that is suddenly not so convincing. That little by little does not fit with the bloodstains, with the speculations of the police. Much less with the burden of secrecy that he carries on his back.

The Staircase takes the risk of modulating the fictional with the real in a complicated game of mirrors without resolution. But the trick is not so effective when it is extended into a series of similar scenes in which the different versions of the murder face each other. Could Kathleen have died from a mere accident as Michael claims? The series spends a fair amount of time demonstrating the scenario described over and over again by the single indicted. Could Kathleen have been the victim of a devious murder? Also, there are scenes in which the criminal intention is much more evident, in which Michael’s manipulation is clear. So the question is unavoidable and perhaps because it is obvious, tedious. What is the truth? What is trying to narrate a premise based on a case in which the truth became complicated and increasingly confusing litigation?

The HBO Max series has a hard time extrapolating the idea of reality with fiction, which in turn emulates what could have happened. Of course, it is a dilemma and a trap that the argument falls into on more than one occasion. Try to reconstruct Kathleen’s crime from all available versions? Or is it just a game of cat and mouse riddled with inconsistencies? Whatever the answer, The Staircase fails to build a convincing look at what it poses. And for the third recreation of the victim’s death, the issue is reduced to an uncomfortable idea. Is the script trying to create a sense of confused unreality, or does it just evade the main point about Michael’s guilt?

The Staircase – No Answers, No Meaning, No Form

In its documentary version released in 2004, the story of Kathleen Peterson disturbed the French audience. Director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade narrated from a distressing closeness to a chaotic judicial process. Also, how the culture judged Michael and even the possibility of his innocence was questioned. All this, without making a value judgment or much less, provides any bias to the narrative. Such a plot prodigy allowed the documentary to become a reference for narratives based on real events. Also, in a connection between the idea of a crime turned into an event.

Perhaps that’s why HBO Max’s The Staircase is lackluster in contrast. The script fails to build such a solid base, much less, a story with enough strength to show the secrets of an ambiguous fact. Full of cracks and soft spots, the argument is more interested in showing that the law can go wrong. But no, that Michael could simply be the victim of unexplained events. The thread that unites both ideas is a confused version of the truth. One that does not survive, much less is sustained, and that ultimately is just a complicated spider web between the plausible and the obvious. The lowest point of the plot.

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