Tangle (M) Starring: Ben Mendelsohn, Justine Clarke, Kat Stewart, Catherine McClement, Matt Day, Joel Tobeck, Blake Davis, Lincoln Younes, Georgia Flood, Eva Lazzaro, Lucia Mastrantone. Thursdays, 8.30 pm, Showcase.
Tangle is one of those deliberate titles that is itself a tangle of meaning. It refers to the tangle of its characters' lives with each other, via familial or circumstantial association. And to the fact that an individual life can be a tangle of obligations, self-interest and other forces. Then there's tangle in the adversarial sense, as in 'to tangle with' — yep, that applies too; there's plenty of conflict to be found among this knot of middle-class suburbanites.
Tangle, screening on Foxtel's Showcase, is the type of finely crafted Australian drama that fits the high-end, HBO-style model to which Showcase aspires. It's a thinking-person's soapy, complete with a talented and accomplished cast. The writers deftly mete out the snags and strands of this convoluted yarn with the dexterity of a sleight-of-hand artist. Watch closely:
At the centre of the mess is a jogger, who took a fatal tumble down a steep embankment during a morning jog. Fatefully, the jogger's route, around the iconic Yarra Bend (itself a sweeping tangle of tarmac) in the affluent Melbourne suburb of Kew, is shared by arrogant builder Vince (Mendelsohn). And the corpse comes to rest in a discreet, bushy location that is frequented by Vince's loner teenage nephew, Max (Blake Davis).
Max discovers the body, then shares his morbid find with his obnoxious cousin, Vince's son Romeo (Younes), and their friend Charlotte (Flood). Rather than going to the police, the teens steal the man's ID and keys, and pay a visit to his house, which they swiftly appropriate as their personal clubhouse. This becomes a point of contention and a matter of pride between the two boys, both of whom are vying for Charlotte's attention.
Twisted, yes — and that's just the children. The adults, busy jealously guarding their own needs and desires, are oblivious to what the kids are up to. Charlotte's mum (Mastrantone) is having an affair with Vince, and his wife, Ally (Clarke) is infatuated with a Russian cosmonaut who lives on a space station (they talk daily via radio).
In addition to their children, Romeo and the eccentric Gigi (Lazzaro), Vince and Ally are playing host to Vince's best mate Gabriel (Day) — he's recently dumped his girlfriend overseas, because he's secretly carrying a torch