The English crime miniseries “Stay Close”, based on a 2012 novel by mega-selling Harlan Coben is a gripping tale of expected and unexpected sequences in life. The main player is Megan, about to be married to her boyfriend of 16 years. It is one of those past-comes-back-to-haunt-you tales in which something really bad happened years ago and sent multiple lives into a tailspin.
Other characters include Lorraine (Sarah Parish), an old friend of Megan’s; Broome (James Nesbitt), a cop obsessed with a long-cold missing person’s case; and Ray (Richard Armitage), a sort of sub-paparazzi photographer discover something bloody.
Jumbo’s performance is outstanding, her face is capable of expressing thousands of emotions simultaneously. Megan is a woman with two identities: one for a wild past, one for a fretful present. There’s a touch of Hitchcock to Megan’s split.
The webseries constructs its puzzle slowly, through subliminal editing of past violence and through the silences in what the characters don’t say to each other.