PALM ROYALE (2024) – Fun watch despite its over the top style and an abrupt ending

American comedy actress Kristen Wiig (TV’s Saturday Night Live alumni) takes the lead in this 10 episode comedy as a desperate penniless wannabe socialite, Maxine, who quite literally gate crashes her way into high society club in Florida called Palm Royale. Her only link to the elite class is through her husband’s name which has connection to a rich family but to which they have been renounced. The series follows Maxine’s creative exploits as she wriggle her way to get what she wants.

The comedy style here takes a little bit of getting used to. Kristen plays her role with a lot of exaggerated and exuberated manner. Nobody behaves like this in real like, so this is strategy reminds you to take everything with a grain of salt. Once this approach is accepted you can sit back and enjoy the wild ride with Maxine as she faces (and overcomes) obstacles after obstacles in her quest for being accepted as a honorary member of the snobs’ club. I must say that Kristen is simply wonderful as Maxine. Her spiritedness and energy is infectious and I binged watched this series without a problem. She is supported by quite a star-studded cast of familiar and “old timers” notably, Bruce Dern, Carol Burnett and Ricky Martin. I must say that the supporting characters do not have as much fun as Kristen’s character do. Ricky Martin who has been in front of the camera for a long time, has lots of screentime to show off his still youthful physique. His face however, looked strangely and makes me wonder if some sort of “de aging filter” was used to make him look younger. This was a bit distracting to an otherwise okay performance.

For me, the series does suffer from a number of issues which stop it from being better than it was. I felt there were simply too many characters with too many side stories, some of which got lost along the way. The weight of having too many characters also affected the flow of the main story as so many things seem to be thrown in the mix. The series is set in the 1960’s so they film makers have fun with the costumes and set designs. It was the time of the Vietnam War, hippie movement, space age and President Nixon. Amazingly all these elements were somehow interweave into the plot!

Nevertheless, Kristen Wiig’s performance keeps thing lively cumulating in a cracker-jack of a final act! She had her best moment in a strangely emotional monologue and singing “Is That All There Is” as her world seems to collapse around her, and she begins to register all the lies and betrayal that had fallen upon her in her quest for acceptance. The abrupt ending was a bit disheartening, but it was a clever way to end the series. It could be accepted as an ending as each of the characters did sort of reach some form of pinnacle in their lives. Yet, its cliff-hanger modus operandi sets it up for a follow-up season. I suspect this is not the last we see of Maxine.