Copyright Los Angeles Times
For years, the regeneration of older men has dominated our screens. Liam Neeson may have become the king of the “geriaction” drama in 2008 with “Taken” (and has had a death grip on the crown, with dozens of other high-octane films since then), but men of a certain age are always being dragged into second and third acts, invariably panting, “I’m getting too old for this,” as they scramble to save the girl/their marriage/the world. As with so many types of roles, it took Hollywood some time before creators and execs realized women could do the same — Jamie Lee Curtis in the 2018 sequel “Halloween,” Michelle Yeoh in an Oscar-winning turn in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Helen Mirren in “Red” and “1923,” and Viola Davis in “The Woman King.” Now the growing army of 60-ish women who kick ass, take names and rarely complain about getting too old for anything has been joined by Emma Thompson’s Zoë Boehm in Apple TV’s “Down Cemetery Road,” out Wednesday, and the menopausal punk rockers of Sally Wainwright’s “Riot Women,” which is expected to debut in the U.S. on Britbox early next year and launched a few weeks ago on BBC One. Between the two, it is safe to say we have entered a next phase of female rebellion — Culture Wars: Rise of the Crones. Based on the novel series by Mick Herron (who also gave us “Slow Horses”), “Down Cemetery Road” follows the adventures of Sarah Tucker (Ruth Wilson), an Oxford art conservationist whose life is upended by an explosion on a neighboring street that may not have been an accident. Convinced that the young girl who survived is being disappeared, she enlists the aid of a local PI firm, run by Joe Silverman (Adam Godley) and his wife Zoë Boehm (Thompson). Tough where her husband is soft, jaded where he is open-minded, Zoë initially thinks Sarah‘s case is a waste of time — she wants Joe to focus on collecting all the fees he has let slide instead of haring off to aid another “damsel in distress.” But when Zoë is forced by circumstance to look into the case, she reveals herself to be fearless, dogged and street-smart, as noir an investigator as Oxford is likely to get. There have been more than a few female detectives of a certain age — Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher, Vera Stanhope — but none have ever been as “no-effs-given” 60-plus aspirational as Zoë. She’s got a shock of silver hair (that should inspire a “the Zoë” haircut), a long black leather coat with matching combat boots, an active extramarital sex life and a directness that could be considered rude if she were the type of person who would waste her time on rudeness, which she clearly is not. Zoë is about two decades younger in Herron’s books. Several narratives thread through “Down Cemetery Road” — this being from Herron, it isn’t surprising that corrupt and inept government officials are trying to cover up a crime with more crime, much of it quite violent. Sarah finds herself thrown together with former soldier Mark Downey (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) who also wants to find the little girl while eluding assassin Amos (Fehinti Balogun). Stewart-Jarrett is terrific but the show is strongest when it focuses on the women, separately and together. Wilson’s Sarah is heroic, particularly given her self-doubting nature and quasi-maternal motives, but Thompson makes Zoë, for all her failings and regrets, an instant icon. Fresh off her first action-hero role in the “Dead of Winter” (where she follows in Jodie Foster’s icy “True Detective: Night Country” footsteps), Thompson has shaken off whatever remained of her Jane Austen/Merchant Ivory niceties. In “Dead of Winter,” her grieving Barb is an accidental (if gritty and determined) hero. With Zoë, she offers a generational battle cry: “Rise my post-menopausal sisters and fight; you have nothing to lose but your culturally imposed feelings of irrelevance.” Which is pretty much the theme of “Riot Women.” Creator Sally Wainwright (“Happy Valley,” “Gentleman Jack,” “Last Tango in Halifax”) has devoted her entire career to conjuring complicated, resonant and terrific female characters in all life stages. “Riot Women” is, in many ways, a distillation of her oeuvre. When pub owner Jess (Lorraine Ashbourne) suggests to a few of her friends that they form a band, she’s imagining a half-serious one-off performance at a fundraiser for refugees at her grandchildren’s school. But the women she’s asked are all in varying degrees of troubled transition, including but not limited to haywire hormones. Holly (Tamsin Greig) has just retired from the police force, Holly’s sister Yvonne (Amelia Bullmore) is a midwife nettled by an overburdened healthcare system and Beth (Joanna Scanlan) is a disaffected teacher who, having been ditched by her husband and ignored by her son, feels so invisible that she contemplates suicide. For them, and the younger Kitty (Rosalie Craig), a substance abuser with little regard for the law, the band offers an unexpected chance to rekindle the vitality and passion that has been ground away by life and (with the exception of Kitty) the often overwhelming symptoms of insomnia, hot flashes, migraines and brain fog. When an ABBA cover is suggested, Beth rebels, pushing the group toward punk and original music, committing herself to the band as if her life depends on it. Which in her case, it does. Their problems do not vanish, of course. The tension between Jess and her adult daughter quickly escalates to crisis. Holly and Yvonne’s mother (played by the redoubtable Anne Reid) is disappearing into dementia. Beth latches onto Kitty in part to alleviate the isolation she feels, and Kitty’s very poor impulse control may force her to jail, or worse. But that is the whole point. When circumstance, and one’s own body, seem to conspire against you, one can, as E.M. Forster said, “Only connect!” To other like-minded souls, sure, but also to the inner punk warrior that is never too old to take action.
