‘Bridgerton’ Delivers Hot Sex and Corsets for Christmas

Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

View in Browser Subscribe with Kevin Fallon Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This Week: Shonda Rhimes' sexy Christmas gift to us all. Promising Young Woman meets Paris Hilton. A Riz Ahmed appreciation. Gal Gadot, what you doing? A very dishy SoulCycle investigation. The Bridgerton Christmas Musical It's a bit of a Scrooge-y Christmas season for all of us, and so Shonda Rhimes gave us Regé-Jean Page, as a little treat.   Page is the male lead of Bridgerton, the new period soap opera that marks Rhimes' first project to air from her massive Netflix deal.  The series itself is like a thought experiment asking, "What if Jane Austen had seen Gossip Girl and was then asked to write a binge-worthy TV series that is meant to be consumed with a vibrator in hand?" And Page is the answer to that query, an actor who a colleague of mine—whose identity I will not reveal in order to protect her from future restraining orders—decidedly ruled "the hottest man I have ever seen."    But Page as Simon Basset, the brooding and emotionally tortured hunk stalking the outer circles—not to mention the libidos—of Regency London's society season, is but one fantastical draw of Bridgerton, particularly with its Christmas Day release date at the end of this cursed pandemic year.   It surely is not what Rhimes or Netflix planned when it came to how or when to launch this very expensive-looking, very escapist new show. But, as it stands, it arrives with serious vibes of, "Got nothing to do over holiday break? Here's sex and corsets from the Grey's Anatomy lady." And, truly, God bless us, every one.   Bridgerton is set in that British society era we've festishized to the point of historical fiction in our minds, when balls were staged with the sole purpose of matching one family's come-of-age daughter to another's eligible bachelor. A time when decorum is such a priority it could only be fruitful ground for salacious gossip, which is precisely what Bridgerton seizes on.    Enter Lady Whistledown, an omniscient character voiced by Julie Andrews who pens the Grosvenor's Square version of Page Six. (If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Julie Andrews is the new Kristen Bell.) She's all up in everyone's business, to the point that even the Queen is keeping tabs on who's in Whistledown's favor and whose scandals she's raking through the mud.   Whistledown's main preoccupation is Daphne Bridgerton, the "diamond" of the society season; it's Tinsley Mortimer, if you will. After a few stressful minutes of "you can't tell me that's not Sansa Stark" while watching Phoebe Dynevor's performance, you'll be swept away in her infuriatingly complicated love story with Simon Basset.    If you've read any of the advance coverage of Bridgerton, you'll have heard that this show fucks. As in there is sex. Lots of it. And not like Scandal "this is kind of hot and then the camera cuts away" sex. There are butts! And boobs! And at Christmastime! Oh come all ye faithful, indeed.   The series takes a few episodes to get to all the humping you've heard about. At first I wondered, where was all the sex I was promised? And then it showed up. And came again and again. It was so incessant I needed to press pause and spend a few minutes with God.    At one point, two characters are having a heated argument about the state of their lives together, they briefly pause for a violent round of cunnilingus on a staircase, and then they continue their argument.   This is a big fuss about what is, ultimately, just one element of the show—albeit an undeniably important one. But that underscores how Bridgerton actually makes good on the intrigue of a legendary network television creator taking her universe—literally Shondaland—to a streaming service. It's not just the explicitness of the love scenes, or even a no-brainer like the budget she's afforded to make a show that looks like this, as if PBS sent all of Downton Abbey through a Baz Luhrmann Snapchat filter and this is what came out the other side. Too many of these major streaming deals have found their creators essentially doing their same schtick, just with longer running times, more narrative bloat, and, some would argue, a diminishing return on quality. With Bridgerton, Rhymes seems to genuinely be capitalizing on doing things narratively—not just production-wise—that she never would have been able to do on broadcast TV.    A Regency soap opera pulsing with lust? It's the circa 2020 industry conundrum where it will be an undeniable, massive hit for Netflix, but never would have existed anywhere else.   I mean, folks, it's not perfect. There are some story yarns that range from boring to perhaps even offensive. For all the celebration of the inclusive, seemingly gender-blind casting, there's such a half-hearted swing toward a queer storyline that you wonder why bother at all. And the playfulness with production can careen from cute to twee quite quickly.  But honestly… whatever. It's a juicy show that will get you hard and make you cry—a real capturing of life under lockdown—while serving up a cast so stacked with attractive actors that by the time storied British hottie Freddie Stroma shows up, he starts to look almost plain. Let's all just be grateful. The Year's Best Movie Scene, Featuring Paris Hilton Sometimes it takes almost 15 years to come to a painful realization. To admit something difficult, to confess a personal fault, to finally see things for what they truly are—and always were. To see, for example, that Paris Hilton may have created one of the millennium's perfect pop songs.   To be fair, the best among us were always hip to the fact that, with her 2006 song "Stars Are Blind," the socialite had somehow crafted the quintessential confection of swooning puppy love: the innocuous lyrics; a breathy, almost bored vocal made all the easier to sing along to; and a lilting beat like a beach ball bouncing in the wind down a sandy beach—somehow both embarrassingly reminiscent of Muzak, yet also soothing in a way that the chaotic bells and whistles elsewhere on the pop scene failed to embrace.   Now, all these years later, the song is finally cool. After building buzz for almost an entire year off its Sundance debut in January, Promising Young Woman was finally released Christmas Day. The film, written and directed by rising talent Emerald Fennell, stars Carey Mulligan as a barista on a #MeToo revenge mission.    Fennell lays sticks of dynamite under every trope that exists for how to tell a thriller like this tackling such serious issues. Her film is girly, flirty, fashionable, acidically funny, and boasts a catchy soundtrack populated with bops by Britney Spears, Charli XCX, and, yes, Paris Hilton.    The truth is, the Paris Hilton "Stars Are Blind" scene may, when it comes down to it, be my favorite scene of the year.    Mulligan's character, Cassie, is really trying to allow herself to exist in a world where justice is served, forgiveness happens, and happy things like love are possible. That's how she ends up in the giggly throes of a budding romance with a former classmate played by Bo Burnham, delivering one of the most irresistible rom-com male lead performances in recent memory—you know, were he actually acting in a rom-com at all.    The big set piece that lets you know that the two really have fallen for each other takes place in a drug store. "Stars Are Blind" starts playing on the speakers, and Burnham's character starts lip-syncing to it, goofily dancing up and down the aisles. He's so charming that, instead of being mortified, Cassie joins in. It's equal parts rapturous and ridiculous. It's a perfect movie scene.   When I interviewed Fennell earlier this month (read that story here), I asked her about using Hilton's song. It wasn't just for attention or as a joke. It's a choice that mattered at a pivotal point in a serious arc of a complicated movie.   "For me, that scene is so much about what falling in love feels like," she said. "If you're someone like Cassie who's been alone for so long, who's been on this kind of grim, relentless road, the thing that's gonna pull you away from it needs to be extraordinary. So it needed to feel like the most romantic moment in the world, because even she has to not be able to resist it. And we as an audience will also be rooting for it. Because we want things to happen. We want romance to be able to save the day."   Paris Hilton, savior of romance. That's hot. Riz Ahmed Is So Good in The Sound of Metal Listen, it's not possible to be first to everything. So it took almost a month of colleagues tweeting its praise and the homescreen on my Amazon Firestick practically bullying me with an advertisement every time I logged on to finally check out the new film The Sound of Metal. I'm so glad I did.    The film stars Riz Ahmed, the astonishing actor who made his "oh wow, hi, hello there…" arrival to our collective attention with the HBO limited crime series The Night Of. He plays a drummer and recovering addict whose life is upended when he begins to lose his hearing.    Ahmed gives one of those "holy shit, he was so good in that" performances that really takes you by surprise. And, while it's entirely besides the point, he looks like this. I'm surprised that Best Actor, the awards category I usually care least about (men, how boring) is shaping up to be my favorite race. There's Ahmed, Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom), Anthony Hopkins (The Father), Delroy Lindo (Da Five Bloods), Steven Yeun (Minari), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami), and Tom Hanks (News of the World.) Though, please, keep the atrociously miscast Gary Oldman far from this race. (Mank u, next.)   And one last endorsement: Paul Raci, a hearing person who grew up with deaf parents, absolutely must be a part of the Supporting Actor awards conversation for his "I'm going to take your heart, fold it like a paper airplane, and toss it off a cliff" performance as the sober living manager. Gal Gadot Continues to Stun Good on Gal Gadot for her consistency, which in this case means bookending this god-awful year by being absolutely embarrassing on the internet.    I'm still too scarred by it to fully revisit that celeb-filled "Imagine" video she orchestrated at the beginning of the pandemic, but rest assured that it did happen and, yes, it can still hurt you. Now, the Wonder Woman 1984 actress has spent the last few days pretending to be her character, Diana Prince, on Instagram, posting pictures and writing captions as if she is the superhero herself.    Listen, I'm not "the audience," whoever that may be, for these superhero movies. So rather than pass judgment on Wonder Woman 1984, I'll just say it is a film that stars Kristen Wiig as a villain in '80s leopard-print drag and yet somehow was described as highlighting "not only the dire state of the live-action superhero genre in film, but the dire state of Hollywood filmmaking as a whole." Hmm. In any case, here's Gal Gadot pretending to be Wonder Woman eating a scoop of ice cream. What Happens at SoulCycle… No Longer Stays There Have I been known to cry on occasion while sweating on an indoor bicycle going nowhere while a dubstep remix of a Sia song blasts over the loudspeakers? No comment. Did I cringe, gasp, applaud, and, yes, even gag while reading Alex Abad-Santos' Vox exposé on SoulCycle's rise and fall(ish), and the underbelly beneath the cult of fitness exclusivity? Undeniably.    If you don't read the whole thing, might I suggest hitting "command + F" for the word "tampon?" Soul: It's not the holidays if you're not crying to a Pixar movie. (Friday on Disney+) Promising Young Woman: A traumatizing delight. (Friday on VOD) Wonder Woman 1984: At least you didn't have to go to theaters just to be let down. (Friday on HBO Max) The Masked Dancer: Like The Masked Singer, but with dancing, as was foretold in my nightmares. (Sunday on Fox) Advertisement © Copyright 2020 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 Privacy Policy If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, click here to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can safely unsubscribe.