Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Let me get this out of the way: BBC America’s freshman sci-fi series is not for everyone. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a winding, complicated, quirky story that takes its tone directly from Douglas Adams. There’s time travel, quips, mind and body alterations, more blood than you would think, and confusion. Lots of confusion. However, if all of those elements sound appealing to you, you’ll be treated to one of Elijah Woods’ strongest and most self-loathing performances to date.
In recent years, Wood has become an increasingly interesting actor much in the same way as Daniel Radcliffe. Because Wood will likely keep collecting royalties from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for years to come, he probably doesn’t have many paycheck-to-paycheck worries, leaving the actor free to pursue whatever projects he wants. Time has shown that the projects Wood is attracted to are unquestionably, well, bizarre. Perhaps the best role Wood is known for post-Jackson is FX’s Wilfred, where Wood starred as the show’s wide-eyed, irresponsible, and mentally unstable protagonist as well as the straight man to the show’s aggressively vulgar titular character (Jason Gann). From 2011 to 2014, Wilfred played with the lines of laugh-out-loud comedy, sobering drama, and cracking mental stability — a combination that’s become increasingly more common in today’s television landscape. Standing at the center of all of these weed jokes and institutionalized break downs was Elijah Wood.
In Wilfred, Wood’s character Ryan transformed the series from a bro-out comedy to a mental illness-plagued retribution story. Ryan started the series as a failure so haunted by his own mistakes and intense self-hatred, he attempted to kill himself. By the time the series ended, Ryan wasn’t exactly better because, as the show acknowledged, there’s not really a “better” when it comes to mental illness. Rather, Ryan left as a man able to confront and attempt to fix his many mistakes. It was an emotional journey and performance that was difficult to watch for a variety of reasons, but it was one that was almost always engaging.
This isn’t the first time Wood has tackled the messed up, insecure protagonist who has to own up to his flaws. His character Waters in The Trust, starring Nicolas Cage, plays with similar beats, and the Emmy-winning Cartoon Network mini-series Wood starred in, Over the Garden Wall, focuses almost exclusively on the concepts of self-acceptance and retribution for past actions. You can say that this is type-casting, but Wood gravitates toward these projects again and again. Also, he’s incredible at them. It’s easy for a self-hating character to be perceived as whiny and obnoxious, especially if that character is a white male. These criticisms have haunted many projects, from the Duplass brother’s Togetherness to Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere. But Wood is incredibly good at portraying this delicate character type in an authentic way. When I watch Wood in these roles, his self-hatred feels like it’s coming from a deep, broken place inside the character, not from outside scenarios or a self-indulgent need to be recognized as a tortured artist. That hurts.
Which brings me back to Dirk Gently. After spending what seems to be an exhausting amount of time being dragged around by an eccentric, overly eager British stranger (Samuel Barnett), Todd (Wood) and Dirk (Barnett) hit a breaking point in their friendship in Episode Seven. I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s a tense and complicated moment that alters the entire focus of the series in under three minutes. This is far from Wood’s only shining moment in the series. Dirk Gently wonderfully uses the actor’s strengths, utilizing his dry delivery and eye-rolling exasperation to add levity to crucially dramatic moments and clearing the scene for Woods when the series needs a difficult-to-land emotional punch. It would be very easy for Max Landis’ series to go off the rails, and Dirk Gently threatens to multiple times. However, time and time again, it’s Wood’s humbling performance that grounds the entire series.
It’s time we stop only thinking about Elijah Wood for his work with Peter Jackson. He has become the surprisingly complicated force to be reckoned with, and he is especially unparalleled when it comes to portraying onscreen self-hatred and stories of retribution. Also? Everyone should give this odd BBC series a shot.
