Baby Reindeer

Available on Netflix

It’s a little late for me to be waxing lyrical about Baby Reindeer, given that it bagged six Emmys at the end of last week. Alas, it’d be wrong of me not to after finally getting round to watching the Netflix sensation. 

This seven-part adaptation of Richard Gadd’s award-winning one-man show, based on his own experience of being harassed by a female stalker, deserves all of the acclaim that has been bestowed upon it. As well as being one of the most nerve-racking viewing experiences I’ve endured for some time, it is an incredibly layered show that examines its subject matter in a painstaking amount of detail.    

Jessica Gunning’s outstanding performance as Martha, Gadd’s disturbed pursuer, ensures that viewers can fully empathise with the ordeal of being stalked. However, it is Baby Reindeer’s thoughtful analysis of the trauma that shapes its central characters that elevates it. To speak too much of that would risk spoiling the show for the few readers who have yet to see it, but Gadd’s writing is certainly impressive, especially given that it is his own real-life anguish that is mostly being documented.  

With Weronika Tofilska and and Josephine Bornebusch also providing astute direction, Baby Reindeer is undoubtedly one of the year’s most essential shows, an utterly absorbing affair that forces you to look beyond its surface level and consider the malignant forces which compel people to behave desperately. While its premise elicits memories of films such as Rob Reiner’s Misery, this is a decidedly more complex affair that rightfully puts both Gunning and Gadd on the map.