According to my french friends' facebook status, United States of Tara was launched very successfully on the private Canal + channel a few weeks ago. Maybe a little too successfully - after watching the two first episodes, everybody checked out the complete season in original version thanks to Internet. So now I wonder if there will be any audience for it in the next weeks. Gotcha Canal + ...

I really love United States of Tara - Desperate Housewives, as much as I still love it, has never been as good as season 1 proved itself to be. Never ever... This is a very different TV show, but United States of Tara talks to me as much as Desperate used to. This is funny, sad, disturbing and addictive at the same time.

For the lucky ones who still don't know about the show and will enjoy discovering it, let's sum up shortly. Tara is a sweet woman, very creative, who seems reasonnable outside but is actually the most fragile creature inside. She doesn't know why, she doesn't know how, but the fact is that she suffers from Identities Troubles. To make it clear: she is not only Tara, she sometimes becomes T., teenager-version of herself ; or Alice, a conservative and Breevandekampish housewife ; or Buck, a man, looking a lot like Gran Torino's Clint Eastwood to me.

Somehow, the three of them are here to protect her from life's heartache. T. doesn't consider anything seriously in life, which is all about fun and new experiences. Alice is supposed to preserve the morality and the apparent integrity of the family. Buck puts all feminity away and denies Tara's complex feelings.

All of this is theory ; in the end, Tara is not protected at all, and her psychological troubles are destroying her as much as it keeps her alive ; as for her family, they are all expecting to explode at one moment or another.

Tara is both comic and trafic ; this is also an investigation, as Tara is trying to figure what the hell caused the birth of her alter-egos. You can add to this the suspense created by the potential apparition of other alter-egos : is Tara "only" four people, or more ?

I also love the other family members' ambiguity: do they hate this situation ? do they love it ? Tara's husband used to love Tara no matter what, also because the other alter-egos are fun - even though he will never admit it.
Tara's rebellious daughter is always glad to see T., because she is fun as well, this teenager cliché of her mum, rude and vulgar. Tara's kind-hearted and gay son is always anxious to see machist Buck coming, but always relieved when the perfect housewife Alice is replacing his mom.

Nothing is black and white, just fragile, sometimes hysterical, and very disturbing...

(P.S. : ok, Toni Collette helps a lot, In her Shoes, The Sixth Sens, Little Miss Sunshine, I love that woman)

You make me crazy

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