The Obsession
Episode 4 of Losing Alice begins with Alice in rehearsals until Sofie shows up. She’s late and forced to stay outside the room while various different females audition for the main role. Alice struggles to concentrate though and eventually hurries after Sofie. Only, when she hurries up the hallway, she’s gone. The girl they’ve auditioned though is perfect for the role, but Alice is too distracted by her phone to become fully invested in what her colleague is saying. Afterwards though, Alice heads on the train and continues messaging Sofie. Only, she isn’t answering leaving Alice bored and left to her thoughts on her commute. When she finally returns home, Alice greets her child but she has a bad stomachache. Alice cradles the girl in bed and checks her phone for messages from Sofie. Eventually Alice rings and gets through to her; Sofie apologizes for having such a crazy day and admits that the girl they auditioned is perfect for the role. However, she’s busy and gets off the call pretty quickly. Meanwhile, David heads out for a 5km run but when he gets back, finds Tamir messing around in his car, trying to find his phone. Eventually the pair talk, with Tamir admitting that Sofie came into her clinic earlier on. That evening, Alice and David discuss THAT scene from the book, the same one he enacted with Sofie the night before when he sucked her toe. As they undress each other with their eyes, they eventually start kissing. The next day, the cast all gather ready for the big day. Sofie meets the actress in the lead role, Danielle, and they begin rehearsing the different scenes. Things are less than ideal, with Danielle’s attitude way off for the role of Eleanor and clashing with the direction of the script. Instead, Alice suggests Sofie lead the role and play as Eleanor to show exactly how it should be done. We then cut back in time as Sofie heads up to meet Danielle at the bar she’s working at. Tamir happens to show up too and orders himself a drink. He calls her cute, with Tamir taking videos for her Facebook story. This coincides with the earlier scene we saw of Alice checking her phone. Danielle meanwhile, begins snorting lines of coke and now it seems likely that Sofie did this to sabotage her chances. When Tamir shows up and sees the girls kissing, he quickly leaves while Sofie and Danielle grow closer together. As we cut forward again, Danielle regrets her evening with Sofie as she’s taken back to her apartment. With a heady cocktail of smoking and drinking, Danielle was seduced by Ami but turned away from engaging with the couple. When she returned, Danielle believes they were reenacting scenes from the play. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s a hallucination but one thing’s for sure – Sofie wanted to throw Danielle off her game. When Alice learns all this, she’s not happy and finds herself in a difficult position to tell Sofie exactly what she thinks of her antics. Alice marches over to Sofie’s house and asks her about the night with Danielle. After hearing her side of things, she warns Sofie away and eventually storms out. Her walking brings Alice to the bar where she makes the bold decision to have this as the set for Sofie’s screenplay. As she sits and marvels at the sights, we cut back and forth between the scenes from the story and Alice sitting deep in contemplative thought.
The Episode Review
As more of Sofie’s true nature is revealed, Losing Alice begins to lose some of that initial spark it had at the start of the season. The show is undeniably moody and chock full of dark and hypnotic segments but it amounts to nothing in the wake of such a cookie cutter story. The makeshift affair/ love triangle angle has been played out a number of times over the years. It’s not particular new or different here, although it’s always good to showcase different Directors at the helm. Props to AppleTV for at least showcasing this, with Losing Alice following Tehran’s example of shining the spotlight on Israeli cinema. Unlike Tehran, this is not a pacey thriller and much more of a slow burn. It’s not a bad show per-se, but it’s not a particularly great one either. We’ll have to wait and see how the story unfolds in the future but episode 4 feels like a real slow burn.
