Rain Dogs Review – Edgy Toxic Dramady Delivers Strong Performances

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Category: Streaming, Cable

Published on Friday, 09 February 2024 10:16

Written by Janet Walker

Rain Dogs, from HBO, present a toxic dramady of an unconventional love story in London between a working-class single mum, her 10-year-old daughter, and a privileged gay man and the seedy worlds that won't release them.

Told over eight episodes, Rain Dogs begins with Costello, played by Daisy May Cooper, and her daughter Iris, played by Fleur Tashjian, running around her apartment packing what she can throw into black garbage bags, as the police are pounding on the door prepared to evict her. She leaves just before they break the door down.

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The next scene is a prison cell where Selby, played by Jack Farthing, is being released. We can tell from his mannerism and dress that is a man of means, although not power as he wouldn't have landed in a prison cell, with a bunk mate who explains that he better be adding to his wife's bank account weekly or when he is released, of course, the cost of prison protection will be considerably higher.

And the third character in our very challenged set of circumstances is Gloria, played by Ronke Adekoluejo, a funeral home dresser and Costello's best friend, who we meet when she is awaken, by a passing gent in a phone booth.

So after Costello get Iris off to school, she and Gloria hook up as she becomes aware that Selby is out and for some reason he is drawn to her and Iris and the fantasy of the family they could have, even as it is unconventional, Costello is a writer who can not catch a break and with limited options she works as a window dancer in London's seedy sex worker district.

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Selby arrives home to find a note and cash, and told to behave, no welcoming party or even a hello. Like most when they first arrive home, he immediately seeks out Costello and makes sure to find Iris and give her some tide me over cash, and then of course finds a proper sex mate for instant gratification. Simple, quiet, and anonymous.

Soon Costello and Selby reconnect, and he immediately gives her the cash to secure her apartment, buy the groceries, pay the bills, and we understand he controls their relationship with his unlimited means.

We understand that even with Costello's university education she was never able to catch a break and secure a job in her field, and life as a single mom left few options, by episode two, we realize her options were cleaning the home of a real perv who surrounded himself with pictures of vagina's and paid extra to paint hers and a window dancer in the red district until one day an editor arrives at the sex club and offers her the chance to tell her story in print. She takes it believing it will land her the opportunity even to tell other underbelly stories. Unfortunately, the editor believes that the truth isn't exactly what they wanted and does a deep dive on the story which ruins life for her daughter.

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Selby, at this time, is banished from London as his prison cellmate shows up demanding payment, so he is left to live at the country estate, and of course, he can't live there alone. Just as Costello is lost, although still sober, he shows up and invites her and Iris to live with him in the country.

He believes he has just created the perfect dysfunctional and unconventional family. And for a while it works.

Rain Dogs, a dark dramatic comedy, travels the darkened underbelly of society, exposing toxic pollution that infiltrates the mind and seems to grab ahold and not allow anyone to escape. The ensemble cast delivers strong, authentic, and believable performances.

The performance of Jack Farthing, who embodies Selby, has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

Compelling, shocking, and edgy, Rain Dogs is streaming on HBO. See it.

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Country: UK.

Runtime: 8 episodes/45 minutes.

Language: British English (with language nuances).

Director: Richard Laxton, Jennifer Perrott.

Executive Producer: Cash Carraway, Jo McClellan, Lee Morris, Sally Woodward Gentle.

Producer: Henrietta Colvin, Ciara McIlvenny.

Writer: Cash Carraway.

Cast: Daisy May Cooper, Jack Farthing, Fleur Tashjian, Ronke Adekoluejo, Anna Chancellor, Nick Blood, Steve Toussaint, Adrian Edmondson, Tom Durant Pritchard, Sam Hazeldine, Daniel Phung, Karl Pilkington, Tanya Moodie, Siobhan Redmond.