Netflix’s Baby Reindeer shapes a confessional into a dark thriller

polygon.com:

Baby Reindeer, now streaming on Netflix, has become a viral sensation in the week since its largely unheralded release, both in its native U.K. and beyond. It’s easy to understand why; this true story about a struggling comedian and his stalker — written by and starring Richard Gadd and based on his own life — is darkly funny, propulsive, tragic, and peppered with unbelievable turns of events. It mixes the voyeuristic thrill of true crime with the emotional gut punch of memoir. It’s almost impossible not to binge this miniseries in fascinated horror.

Gadd’s extraordinary story, based on his one-man show of the same name (and, to a lesser extent, an earlier show called Monkey See Monkey Do), is part of a trend in British TV whereby young stars supercharge their careers with intimate if fictionalized autobiographies, often adapted from confessional stage shows or stand-up routines. The most famous examples are Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You; another recent one was Mae Martin’s Netflix show Feel Good, a much lighter proposition — it’s basically a rom-com — that nevertheless has striking similarities to Baby Reindeer, both in its portrayal of London’s small-time stand-up scene and in some of the darker elements of Martin’s and Gadd’s backstories.

The story Gadd has to tell is something else, though. Gadd says the events of Baby Reindeer have been changed to create more climactic moments and to protect the identities of the people it’s based on, but they remain “emotionally true.” Gadd plays a version of himself called Donny Dunn, who works as a barman while struggling to kick-start a flailing comedy career. (Gadd doesn’t spare himself in the cringingly unfunny portrayals of Dunn’s act.)

One day, a flustered woman called Martha (Jessica Gunning) comes into the pub where Donny works. She seems upset and wants to sit at the bar for a while, but can’t afford a drink (despite claiming to be a successful lawyer), so Donny gives her a cup