There’s a major disconnect in the trailer for Love and Death (HBO Max, 4.27), a true-crime drama written by David E. Kelley and directed by Lesli Linka Glatter. Boiled down, the disconnect is Elizabeth Olsen saying to Jesse Plemons, “Are you interested in having an affair?”
I’m not having trouble digesting the facts of the case, which happened in 1980 in the small town of Wylie, Texas. Candy Montgomery (Olsen) was a terminally bored mother and housewife whose husband, Pat Montgomery (Patrick Fugit), was an electrical engineer. Montgomery’s close friend Betty Gore (Lily Rabe) was married to Allan Gore (Plemons). Candy and Allan wound up having an affair, and Betty freaked when she found out, which led to Candy doing some freaking of her own — she savagely murdered Betty with an axe, striking her dozens of times.
The Texas Monthly story about the tragedy was titled “Love and Death in Silicon Prairie, Part I: Candy Montgomery’s Affair,” and the subtitle read as follows: “She was a normal suburban housewife. All she wanted was a little fun with another man. She never really expected to kill her lover’s wife.”
All of this is fine, but biological reality is strongly arguing.
It would be one thing if the actress playing Candy was shlumpy or overweight or less than dynamically attractive. But Olsen, 34, is a double-A hottie and has been so for many years, so why in the real world would she want to have sex with a C-minus guy (at best) who looks like Jesse Plemons? Fleshy and ginger-haired, pale and puffy-faced, tiny pig eyes.
This isn’t how life works. Birds of a general feather tend to flock together, and saucy hotties don’t sleep with plump ginger dudes as a rule. I don’t care how bored they are.
The casting was more realistic in Candy, a previously dramatized version of the same story.
The five-episode series premiered on Hulu on 5.5.22. Here’s a visual comparison of the actual characters vs. actors who played them. Jessica Biel played Candy, Melanie Lynskey was Betty, Pablo Schreiber played Allan and Timothy Simons portrayed Pat.
