In the new Polish drama The Doll on Netflix, a woman who resists the expectations of 1870s Polish society meets a merchant who is hellbent on becoming nobility. It doesn’t hurt that he’s been obsessed with her for years.
THE DOLL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A woman is surrounded by men at a society dance. A voice over says, “I don’t blame Miss Łęcka.”
The Gist: Izabela Łęcka (Sandra Drzymalska) is a young woman in 1870s Polish society who doesn’t want to play by the rules. She wants to start a magazine and travel to report stories, not be married to some random rich guy for a dowry. She is even trying to set up having a doddering proxy handle the estate of her father Tomasz (Jacek Braciak), who is still alive but quickly squandering the family’s fortune on questionable investments.
Stanisław Wokulski (Tomasz Schuchardt) is a merchant who inherited his late wife’s business under questionable circumstances, and has been profiteering during the war. He comes back to Poland seeking an entry into the noble class, and he’s obsessed with Izabela. The way he figures, he can take care of both by marrying Izabela and forcing her father to partner with him in a business venture.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Based on the 1880s-era novel by Bolesław Prus, The Doll has a similar feel to My Brilliant Career.
Our Take: Like most historical dramas that are rooted in a particular country’s then-rigid tradition of aristocratic society, The Doll combines all the costumes and mansions and class differences you’d expect with some modernity, mostly in terms of sex. It’s no different here. While the story of Stanislaw’s lust for both Izabela and a noble title and Izabela’s desire to not just be someone’s wife was part of the original text, the sexier parts of this series probably weren’t.
The first episode, which paralleled the quests of both its main characters, was a snooze for the first hour of its 70-minute runtime. We saw some fine performances, but also a lot of women in hoop dresses tut-tutting Izabella for having ambition and a bunch of people with mustaches telling Stanislaw that he’ll never be one of them. Then the usual society meat-market dance we’ve seen in dozens of similar series descends into chaos, with a shooting, a dining-table c-section, and Izabela’s father Tomasz finding out that someone set his last-ditch money-making venture on fire.
That chaos certainly sets the tone for the rest of the limited series — as well as the in media res scene we see during the first episode’s cold opening. It gives us hope that the series will be more about the chaos of Izabel and Stanislaw’s transactional relationship and less about yet another look at how the patriarchy kept women down (which is a valid viewpoint, but one we’ve seen dozens of times by now).
Performance Worth Watching: Sandra Drzymalska is mesmerizing as Izabela, mainly because she seems at first to be a mercurial type, but then we see why she’s perceived as mercurial; she wants to determine her own destiny.
Sex And Skin: There is some brief sex and nudity in the first episode.
Parting Shot: After the chaos of the society dance, Stanislaw sits in his study, smoking a cigarette, and looks at his still-trembling hand.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Doll holds some promise that it’ll have a lot more for viewers than the standard boddice-ripping period dramas have had of late. But it certainly takes the show’s writers a long time to get to something interesting.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.