On May 30, it premiered on Netflix Erica miniseries created by Abby Morgan (prestigious British screenwriter responsible for films such as Shame either The woman of iron) which has quickly climbed to become one of the most viewed titles on the streaming platform.
It is set in the NY of the years eighty and it stars Benedict Cumberbatchwho plays Vincent, a puppeteer who has created a ‘muppets’ for television which is one of the shows dearest to him Children public.
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A good part of the tests will be carried out son, Edgar, a nine-year-old boy who has inherited his father’s imagination. In the program, they want to incorporate a New Characterand the little one has created Erica kind of blue monster with fangs and horns.
The innocence of the program and the dolls will contrast with the world of aggressiveness of the Adults. Vincent can’t control his anger, drinks too much and argues with his wife, Cassie (Gaby Hoffmann). Edgar, in the middle of that toxic environmenthe will take refuge in his world, in his drawings, in his room.
But there is one more element that has been present since the beginning of the series: the citizen insecuritythe violence of the streetsthe disastrous state of the city and the constant child disappearances. Precisely in the last breakfast that Edgar has with his parents (because Edgar will also disappear) we will see the image of a young man on a milk carton who has been wanted for months.
And that was precisely the germ of the series, according to its creator: those children’s faces in the dairy containers that for a time became something as everyday as it was disturbing.
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This practice actually began to spread in the late 1970s, after a boy, named Etan Patz disappeared in the SoHo area of Manhattan. It was the first time that he took the school bus without his parents accompanying him, and he was never seen alive again.
His case generated enormous impact in the society American, to the point that the National Missing Children Day, on May 25. He would be one of the first children whose photo would appear on milk containers.
It was one of the events that inspired Abi Morgan to create the series. From the beginning, as father and son walk the streets of the city or ride the subway, the insecurity in the atmosphere is palpable, as if something was going to happen at any moment.
We are in the It was Reagan.precisely the stage in which a good part of the iconography of terror that has been installed in the collective subconsciouslike the ‘psychokillers’, the serial killerschild stealers, a theme that has been captured in films such as Black Phoneby Scott Derrickson or the celebrated adaptation by Clint Eastwood from the novel by Dennis Lehane, Mystic River.
The new Netflix series has the peculiarity that the little boy’s imagination will come true and that Eric (the blue monster) will accompany the father in his search to find him. Thus, the naïve element will become something profoundly uncomfortable related to trauma, mental problems and guilt.
