Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Glitter’ On Netflix, About Three Women In 1976 Poland Who Are Looking For Independence And A Fulfilling Relationship

Shows set in the ’70s, especially ones that have come out during the past few years, reduce the decade down to its worst features, like polyester leisure suits, bad sideburns and facial hair, disco music and lots of cocaine. Even if the storytelling is solid, sometimes the “Seventies of it all” distracts from that story. So we appreciate shows that make the decade more of a background character than the main attraction. A new drama from Poland does just that.

GLITTER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A blurry shot of a disco ball, then we see patio furniture at the bottom of a pool.

The Gist: “Sopot, the Polish Riviera, Summer 1976.” Polish women are experiencing an era of sexual freedom, and sex work isn’t frowned upon. “This could have been the story of a few of them,” says a graphic on the screen.

We see three women preparing to go to a big hotel opening in the resort city. Helena (Magdalena Poplawska), likely in her 40s, is getting her hair and makeup done; Pola (Wiktoria Filus) is trying to sell her shampoo to clients at one of her salons; Marysia (Matylda Giegzno) steals lingerie from a store. All three are sex workers, but they have other ambitions in life, including finding fulfilling relationships.

Pola gets word that an inspector is going to fail her other salon — again — but, knowing her other line of work, the inspector says he’ll look the other way for a blowjob; she punches him. She goes to Wladek (Szymon Piotr Warszawski) from the city’s Tax and Duty department and tries to get him to make the whole thing go away, but when she sees him at the party later that night, he says the only way he’ll be able to do it if she sleeps with him. During the party, Pola asks Helena what she should do, and Helena’s answer is clear: Sleep with him once in order to save her business.

Helena is working for Adam (Lukasz Simlat) of the Security Service. He wants her to make sure she sleeps with a French journalist they want to take incriminating pictures of from across the street from his room. Before she does that, she meets a handsome and intriguing younger man named Stazek (Stanislaw Linowski), who tempts her a whole lot more than the journalist she needs to pursue.

Marysia gets into the party with the help of Jurek (Jedrzej Hycnar), who is an illegal currency trader, but he doesn’t seem to want her services. But the two of them kiss and end up sleeping together when he saves her from a guy who tries to force himself on her. Still, she does grab the money he leaves on the nightstand before she leaves the room.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Because of the setting, Glitter (original title: Brokat) gives us the vibes of Minx or The Deuce, both involving the changing of sexual mores in the ’70s.

Our Take: Shows that take place during the ’70s seem to glom together the most outlandish aspects of that decade, from the clothes to the hair to the music to the drugs. And, while Glitter makes some mistakes in that regard (see below), it stays relatively restrained in the “Seventies of it all” department. Its concentration is on Helena, Pola and Marysia, and their desire to live their lives their way. It seems that in mid-’70s Poland, despite being under communist control, that liberation seems more than possible.

But what the three of them struggle against is that not only are men blocking their path, but they’re not taken seriously because they’re using sex work to help them earn enough to achieve their dreams.

In Helena’s case, for instance, her relationship with Adam isn’t purely business, and it complicates things when she tries to get together with someone like Stazek, who she is really attracted to. Pola hates that she has to use her body to protect her business.

Marysia has the least developed of the three stories, probably because she’s the youngest of the three women and has the least experience. We’re not sure where things are going with Jurek, but, like the established relationships for all three women, things are likely to get complicated quickly, especially given what their main source of income is.

But the purpose of Glitter isn’t to judge; it’s to show a time in the relatively distant past when things were changing for women in Poland, show some funky mid-’70s Eastern European décor and just sit back and watch these women’s lives unfold. And it does quite a good job at that.

Sex and Skin: All three stars are nude at various points during the first episode, the men are less so. There are plenty of sex scenes.

Parting Shot: The next morning, Pola receives an envelope at her door that has a photo of Wladek having sex with her. She doesn’t seem surprised that the photo exists.

Sleeper Star: Bogdon (Bartlomiej Kotschedoff) is the host of the opening party and seems to be quite lovelorn and depressed. We’ll see more of him during the season. It’s interesting that he wakes up the next morning face down in the hotel pool.

Most Pilot-y Line: One of the main songs on the soundtrack is a Polish version of “Stayin’ Alive.” One problem: That song didn’t come out until late 1977, almost a year and a half after this episode takes place. We hate sloppy mistakes like that.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Glitter makes a real effort to concentrate on its main characters instead of leaning on period clichés, and does so without judgement or a sense of kitsch. Because of that, the characters have room to breathe and develop, something you don’t always see on shows set in the wild ’70s.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.