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Dennis Quaid Is a Convincingly Creepy ‘Happy Face’ Killer, but Paramount’s True Crime Drama Misses the Mark: TV Review
Dennis Quaid plays the Happy Face serial killer in Paramount's flawed, eponymous limited series, co-starring Annaleigh Ashford.
So to develop the story of Melissa Moore (Annaleigh Ashford), the author, podcaster, and adult daughter of so-called “ Happy Face Killer” Keith Jesperson ( Dennis Quaid), into a series, showrunner Jennifer Cacicio (“Your Honor,” “Sexy Beast”) and executive producers Robert and Michelle King (“The Good Fight,” “Elsbeth”) couldn’t just look backward. When “Happy Face” begins, Melissa has successfully built the stable, idyllic family life she herself was denied, living in a spacious Seattle home with her mild-mannered husband Ben (James Wolk) and their children, teenage Hazel (Khiyla Anne) and 9-year-old Max (Benjamin Mackey). Ben’s struggles are milquetoast and marginal until an absurd, late-breaking escalation; Hazel’s are yet another angle from which to comment on the true-crime craze, with the added flourish of teen-girl-on-teen-girl emotional violence from her so-called “friends.” Neither storyline ever outgrows the sense of being auxiliary to the central push-pull between Melissa and Keith.
Or read this on Variety
