Get the latest gossip
‘Cult of Love’ Review: Shailene Woodley and Zachary Quinto in Leslye Headland’s Flawed but Compelling Christmas Story
Mare Winningham and "Succession's" David Rasche also star in Leslye Headland's Christmas comedy-drama.
It’s a Dahl’s house, all right: The set (courtesy of scenic designer John Lee Beatty) falls just on the right side of good taste in terms of its extravagant evocation of the Christmas spirit, with strings of lights whose twinkle can come to seem like an oppressive glare. Throw into the mix the absent Johnny (played, when he arrives, by Christopher Sears), whose recovery from heroin addiction allows his siblings to cast him as the black sheep, shielding Mark and Evie from having to reckon with their own respective issues, and you’ve got a wonderfully intriguing set-up. Its central musical number falls flat, but when the siblings raise their voices in a harmony they cannot help but find, no matter their disjunction, an entire play’s worth of missed opportunities for character development wash away.
Or read this on Variety
