4 out of 5

Directed by: Carmine Elia

An excellent character drama; an okay mystery. The balance is favorable enough for the former to forgive the latter.

Translated as “Sara: Woman in the Shadows,” Sara: La donn nell’ombra adapts several of Maurizio De Giovanni’s novels about the titular ex-spy (played by Teresa Saponangelo), picking up with her living in isolation and coming out of this self-exile to investigate the death of her son, with whom (we learn) she’s been out of contact for many years.

There are some criticisms to offer up front, which I’ve already previewed with my one word take on the central mystery of the show, which deals not with Sara’s son, but rather the disappearance of an informant / agent for the agency for which she used to work. This “agent” was involved in some extracurricular activities with Sara’s prior spy partner, Teresa (Claudia Gerini), who now leads their branch of the agency in its ongoing monitoring of various higher-ups, including political candidate Tarallo (Antonio Gerardi), introducing important parallels to Sara’s past – not only in terms of a cycle of political manipulations, but also more personally, with Sara’s involvement with her superior, Massimiliano (Carmine Recano). If that feels like it’s already stretching beyond the confines of an easy elevator pitch: yes. There’s a sense that the books – notably three of which are combined here – offer a rich sense of both character history and setting, whereas the slim, six-episode season encouraged our writers / director to favor the former, and even then, the choice was to stay in the present instead of lingering on the past. Very often, such choices are the types of compromises which prevent a show from ever really getting going, but in this case, there’s such weight given to learning about Sara’s methods, and patience with showing those methods, that the blurriness of some past and present elements feels okay; that it actually feels somewhat representative of the messy and mundane nature of life in general, which isn’t necessarily written for episodic content.

This inarguably works primarily because of Saponangelo, who presents worlds of thought in Sara’s minute reactions, but also due to Gerini, making the tough exterior of her character none softened by the personal drive she has to find this missing agent with whom she was involved – i.e. the script / direction allows these women to be human, and the actors bring that to further live. To liven things up, we get some light buddy cop dynamics when Sara recruits frustrated cop Pardo to help her out, and Flavio Furno does a great job at being Saponangelo’s put-upon foil, trying to figure out how to express his competence when dealing with no-nonsense women. Lastly, Sara’s son’s significant other, Viola (Chiara Celotto), gives us an excellent B-story that helps drive the story’s emotional underpinnings in smart ways.

But wrapping back around to the main criticism, the season kicks off with Sara’s son’s death, and it’s just the catalyst to pull Sara back into the spy world; it’s almost a red herring plotwise, but only because we have TV training that tells us that it should be super important and become some kind of twist later on. I sincerely loved that the show doesn’t really bother with that (and also sets some interesting stakes up front with how Sara deals with this death), but it does get enough focus that it never really feels like we’ve full switched over to the agent disappearance plotline. And because of, presumably, budget limitations, the political focus that that hooks in to never quite feels as large scale as I suspect it’s supposed to be, especially telling during a rally where there are like twenty people in the crowd. …This is an incredibly influential candidate?

As a last, more meta criticism, the fact that Carmine Recano gets to play Massimiliano both older and younger, but a different actress is brought in for a younger Sara, feels kind of gross – moreso as a statement on casting, and our expectations. Less meta, their relationship doesn’t get nearly enough grounding in the show, but again, Saponangelo comes to the rescue with her acting, and the director finds a nice way to visually indicate how Massimilano’s presence still lingers.

In a show with lesser actors, and a behind-the-scenes team with more traditional priorities, Sara: La donna nell’ombra would likely be an underwhelming take on its source material. But these aren’t lesser actors, and the creative team understood how best to bring this world to life, giving us an incredibly effective character drama.