Pam & Tommy takes a look back at the mid-nineties, at a historical- and infamous- moment in pop culture history that also marked the arrival of the Internet as a game-changer for society as a whole. For viewers who were teens or adults during the nineties, the show might feel like a time capsule that takes them back to those momentous times. For viewers like yours truly, who was all of two years old when the controversy unfolded across tabloids and late-night shows, this might be all-new material.
The show, centered around the relationship between Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan), advertises itself as a love story, which hasn’t gone down well with everyone. Their whirlwind romance eventually ended in divorce after Tommy hit Pamela when she was holding their two-month-old son. The show portrays their marriage as impulsive, enthusiastic and sweet to a fault, only addressing the domestic abuse at the end of the show with two lines of text. If you can look past the toxic specter of this relationship, however. you might find a well-made (and well-acted) show that shows how society treats women who are sexually open unfairly.
We start with Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen) an ex-porn star and current freelance contractor who breaks into Tommy Lee’s safe in his garage after Tommy stiffs Rand on several thousand dollars worth of work. He finds the infamous sex tape and decides to profit off it. As his business unfolds, we see how Pam and Tommy’s relationship started, and then we see the cracks appear as the tape quickly becomes public knowledge. It’s Pam who bears the brunt of the damage: she is judged while Tommy is celebrated. Later, in a deposition, Pam is relentlessly slut-shamed, almost to her breaking point.
Pam & Tommy does a great job harkening back to the nineties as well as capturing the essence of Pam and Tommy’s celebrity lifestyles. Seth Rogen slowly turns from a wronged man to a spiteful profiteer until his ex-wife makes him realize how he ruined Pam’s life, especially since she was innocent. Sebastian Stan turns in a great performance as the energetic, slightly manic Tommy Lee, who can both be an asshole and well-meaning at different points of time.
It’s Lily James, however, who steals the show.
She is transformed with prosthetics into an uncanny resemblance of the actual Pamela, and she disappears into the role, portraying a sweet, sincere woman who is maligned for her status as a sex symbol even as she tries to be a better actress.
I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie directed the first three episodes, making sure to portray the characters as real and not caricatures. Follow-up directors Lake Bell, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, and Hannah Fidell do a competent job keeping these characters mostly realistic, although the writing isn’t as strong in the latter half of the series. There’s a nebulous air to the pacing in those final episodes, and the show seems to sputter to a stop rather than ending well.
As good as the show is, there’s also a rather notable bit of irony in that the creators didn’t take permission from Pamela Anderson to portray her story, despite the show making a sincere case for her agency and dignity being curtailed in the legal and media circuses following the release of the tape.
Still, Pam & Tommy is one of the better limited series to come out this year. It could have been even better if the writing was as solid as it is, for instance, in another recent Hulu original, the Dropout. But it’s worth a one-time watch, especially if you’re one for getting another perspective on celebrities’ lives.
