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Clarice Starling is one of the most compelling heroines in film history. Her first name alone is iconic. Jodie Foster won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of the character in director Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, and yet audiences still don’t know that much about who Clarice is when her chief antagonist Hannibal Lecter is not around. Between Clarice’s built-in fanbase and penchant for staring down monsters, the character is a natural choice to build a new crime procedural around. This is why it’s such a bummer that Clarice, which premieres tonight on CBS, misses the point of Clarice Starling entirely.
Set a year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, the series attempts to dig into the trauma of that experience, but in the most shamelessly gaudy way possible. Aussie actress Rebecca Breeds might have bent over backwards nailing Jodie Foster‘s version of Clarice’s drawl, but she never quite nails her spirit. The courageous heroine audiences rooted for — and, more importantly, looked up to — is now haunted by the paraphernalia of Buffalo Bill’s lair and gory flashbacks to her childhood. Clarice, the character, has been turned into a quivering mess, and Clarice, the show, makes the fatal mistake of thinking that Clarice’s trauma is the most interesting thing about her.
Clarice Starling was first introduced in Thomas Harris’s 1988 novel, The Silence of the Lambs, a sequel to his earlier smash hit, Red Dragon. While the first book followed retired FBI profiler Will Graham, Harris’s follow up focused on Clarice, an ambitious FBI trainee. Her journey was a photo negative of Will’s, whose brilliant career in law enforcement skittered to a halt when he almost died apprehending Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Starling’s career kicks off with a plumb assignment to interview the incarcerated serial killer. From there, she’s entrusted to aid in the hunt for Buffalo Bill, a new menace who has been skinning female victims. His latest quarry? A prominent U.S. Senator’s daughter.
CBS’s Clarice is set one year after the events of The Silence of the Lambs and seven years before Harris’s messy close to the trilogy, Hannibal (aka the Julianne Moore movie — the less said about which, the better). The show could have been a bold leap into uncharted territory for the character, but it clings to the 1991 film’s most iconic images. Death’s head moths swarm Clarice Starling’s thoughts, Buffalo Bill’s lair is recreated to resemble the set of a campy SNL sketch, and even the film’s chosen fonts infiltrate every chyron.
Clarice is banking on the fact that you know the film, you love the film, and you miss the film. The problem is the show’s characterization of its leading lady suggests showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet need to give The Silence of the Lambs a rewatch themselves.
The opening moments of Demme’s Silence quickly, efficiently, and brilliantly sum up Clarice Starling as a character. We watch Jodie Foster’s version of Clarice, clad in grey FBI issue sweats paired with pearl stud earrings, steadily scaling a summit. She’s on the FBI training course, a natural obstacle course full of cargo net climbs and signs telling trainees to embrace pain. And she’s tackling it alone. We then follow Starling as she rushes through the imposing fortress that is Quantico. She slips into an elevator and the shot of her surrounded by men visually sums how out of place the petite orphan with a poor background is here. More disturbing, though, is the implication that every man around Clarice poses a possible threat.
The Silence of the Lambs masterfully uses sexism like a scalpel, illustrating the thousand tiny horrors women have to contend with on a daily basis. Clarice’s femininity is treated as cause to mock her as well as position her as a possible lure for Hannibal Lecter’s curiosity. Yet, for all the visual reminders of how she’s physically at risk, the barrage of sexist remarks she endures, and the literal ejaculate thrown in her face, Starling doesn’t give up. She fights to maintain polite composure in front of the people who matter, much to the amusement of Hannibal. Their whole quid pro quo interview only works because the psychiatrist finds it fun to peel back the layers of forced polish Clarice has. She only cries when she’s out of his sight and she sobs over the memory of her dead father.
The Silence of the Lambs‘s Clarice wrestles with her trauma every damn day, pinning it down so she can get to work, while the show plays up its protagonist’s victimhood as the most interesting thing about her. The Clarice Starling we knew is not easily “spooked,” and yet CBS’s version of her feels like she’s barely making it through each second of her life without a jump scare. Film Clarice collects herself with steading breaths before facing down monsters, while CBS’s Clarice is timid in the face of a challenge. Jodie Foster’s Clarice is defined by her unwavering courtesy and proud bearing, but Rebecca Breed’s version talks back to authority and slumps through scenes. We’re told by Hannibal Lecter himself that Clarice has attempted to shed her West Virginia accent, but Breed’s whole interpretation of the character is built around a twangy drawl.
The real problem with CBS’s version of Clarice stems from the writing. When asked to offer her insight to a case, Clarice wavers, unsure of herself and raw to criticism. In all three episodes sent to critics, she undermines orders and chafes at direction. Worse, she seems constantly on the edge of falling apart. While Episodes 2 and 3 show promising signs of Clarice using her investigative skills, that’s all undermined by scenes where supporting characters can get her to unravel with a few mundane questions. It’s a choice that not only turns Clarice into a weakling, but undercuts the mythology of Hannibal Lecter himself. If anyone can get into Clarice’s head then Hannibal isn’t that special after all.
Clarice Starling was never supposed to be a superwoman, but she is supposed to be a woman defined by tenacity, grace, and courage. She doggedly pursues justice as a way of fighting both a lifetime of trauma and a profession that seems designed to put her in her place at every turn. Trauma isn’t a boogeyman in Clarice Starling’s world, but a constant companion. Yet, Clarice keeps going. She’s literally and metaphorically charging up that hill, undeterred by the horrors she has to endure.
CBS’s Clarice doesn’t want to explore this trauma so much as fetishize it. So the Clarice Starling you’ll meet in the new drama might vaguely look like Foster’s version. She might sort of sound like her, too. However, you’ll see by the cowed look on her face that she’s not the Clarice Starling we know and love. This Clarice wouldn’t even try to get on the FBI Trainee course, let alone smile as she flips herself over a barrier. She’s Clarice in name, but not spirit, and that goes for the whole show.
