Posted in: AMC, Review, TV | Tagged: amc, dashiell hammet, fbi: international, heida reed, scandinoir, Stella Blómkvist, sundance unlimited

Stella Blómkvist Review: Scandinoir with Refreshingly Amoral Heroine

Stella Blómkvist is a hardnosed lawyer in Iceland who defends clients from murder charges that often turn out to involve powerful people, from the Prime Minister to political kingmakers to foreign governments and spies. What sets this show apart from other crime shows is the heroine played by Heida Reed, who currently plays an FBI agent on FBI: International on CBS. Stella is unusual in crime fiction and television in that she's both the sleuth AND the femme fatale.

Stella is a gleefully cynical lawyer with a strong amoral streak who knows how to work the angles and likes to piss off the wrong people just because she can. She carries a massive chip on her shoulder with authority figures, especially the corrupt ones. That makes her potentially the most dangerous person in the room even when she's dealing with a murder suspect or the city's deadliest crime boss. Her best friend and landlady is conveniently a nerd and computer hacker who can get any information she needs. She has to deal with a regular bunch of crooked cops, dodgy politicians, and businessmen and powerbrokers because Reykjavik is a small city and everyone who's anyone kind of knows each other and just about all of them will come to know Stella Blómkvist, the defense attorney who knows who to fix things.

The show is based on a series of popular detective novels that are still not translated into English written by the pseudonymous "Stella Blómkvist" who's rumoured to be someone with insider knowledge in the workings of the government and its dirty laundry. The stories have Dashiell Hammett's flavour with the cynical heroine in a cynical world. The plots might be the usual whodunnits with political undercurrents and social commentary, but it's the main character that you're here for. Heida Reed clearly has a ball-playing a character who's free of angst and owns her flaws and self-destructive tendencies, including seducing an older, married, female politician partly for fun and partly for a mutually exploitative relationship. It's refreshing to have a main character who's not bogged down with depression or angst like US and UK crime shows. Reed's portrayal of Stella's unapologetic nature is the most refreshing part of the show. Stella is an inveterate smartass who can't stop cracking wise and poking at bears who threaten to bite her head off. The show revels in Stella's femme fatale status and is obviously on the Male Gaze side, but it's more entertaining than the gloomy joylessness of most British crime shows.

Stella Blómkvist is streaming on AMC+ as part of Sundance Unlimited's streaming service, and the pilot is free on Amazon Prime.

Stella Blómkvist

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Review by Adi Tantimedh

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7/10

Stella Blómkvist is a Scandinoir detective series with a refreshing heroine who's both the sleuth and the femme fatale, an unapologetically amoral defense lawyer who plays all the angles and likes to piss off all the wrong people just because she can.

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