There was never any doubt about America Ferrera’s terrific talent; it was well-acknowledged on the award-winning Ugly Betty on TV, and at the movie on Real Women have Curves and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, among others. And more recently, America has shown her ability as a producer for films like The Dry Land.
But the twelve-part web-based drama Christine, written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia (Albert Nobbs) as part of the ambitious WIGS channel on YouTube that Garcia and fellow writer/director/producer Jon Avnet (Black Swan) have put together.
The final chapter of Christine appeared on-line last week–the one and only episode that take Christine outside the speed-dating venue where she sat and talked for the first eleven twenty-minute episodes. And though the story itself is alternatively amusing, engaging, and just plain creepy, one thing is absolutely clear: America Ferrera is an amazing actress, who brings a wealth of emotion and complexity to an extremely difficult role, in a very difficult venue of two-person twenty-minute dialogues. She is alternative charming, flirtatious, bitchy, and just plain nuts, and you still can’t stop watching. And never, not for a moment, do you think of her cute teen roles or her quirky Betty. It’s more than just a matter of growing up or pushing the envelope. It’s really about America Ferrera truly, finally, coming into her own. And you can catch actor Jacob Vargas in episode 10, and he’s always good too.
WIGS has big plans for other multi part dramas, all of them stories featuring women under stress. The next one, Lauren, seems to be a combat drama; others will star the likes of Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Beals, Maura Tierney, Michael C. Hall, Jason Isaacs, Allison Janney, Jane Kaczmarek, Jena Malone, Rosanna Arquette, Walton Goggins, Jimmy Wolk, Gary Cole, Tim DeKay, Jason O’Mara, and Catherine O’Hara. If the shows to come are anything like Christine, they will be beautifully designed and directed, smoothly and professionally presented, and very challenging: a whole new level of sophistication for web-based drama.
You can catch all twelve episodes of Christine right here. We’ll see her again soon in the Jake Gyllenhaal/Michael Peña cop drama End of Watch, premiering September 21.
