The Residence review: White House mystery is fittingly loud and annoying ...Middle East

If you watched President Donald Trump’s impromptu Tesla endorsement on the White House lawn and thought to yourself, ‘I wonder who handled the catering,’ then I regret to inform you that your priorities might be a bit jumbled.

Nevertheless, Netflix has the show for you! The Residence uses Kate Andersen Brower’s factual book of the same name as a launchpad for an entirely fictional murder mystery story that wears its influences on its sleeve.

Arguably, the most notable of all is Rian Johnson’s Knives Out – also owned by Netflix in a lovely piece of corporate synergy – in which Daniel Craig’s smooth-talking detective Benoit Blanc untangles a complex plot in the lavish home of a rich family.

Here, the family just so happens to be that of the president of the United States, plus more than 150 staffers and diplomats, including a sizeable Australian delegation that includes a fake Hugh Jackman and a very real Kylie Minogue.

The eccentric sleuth is one Cordelia Cupp, played by multi-Emmy Award winner Uzo Aduba, whose observation skills border on the superhuman and whose birdwatching hobby essentially serves as a substitute for a personality.

Unfortunately, The Residence falls short even by Glass Onion standards as perhaps the most gimmicky, loud and annoying entry into the “cosy crime” genre that we’ve seen to date; at least that feels an apt reflection of the White House’s current residents.

Rather than being Rian Johnson at his best, The Residence is more like Ryan Murphy at his worst, existing in a heightened reality occupied by horrible characters that seem trapped in a state of over-caffeinated mania.

That too might be true of certain Washington DC operatives, but it’s not great company to spend eight irritating hours in – and not even Cupp or her FBI partner Edwin Park (played by WandaVision’s Randall Park) offer an ounce of relief.

The dynamic between them is nothing short of exhausting, consisting of frantically fast-paced conversations in which they discuss the convoluted facts of the case in a manner that tries to be jovial, but reeks of artificial quirkiness.

It’s clear that The Residence fancies itself as a comedy-drama, but there aren’t really any proper jokes in it; gags frequently boil down to one character mishearing or misinterpreting a comment, allowing Cupp, Park or another to issue a sarcastic correction.

There’s also a healthy sprinkling of “well, that just happened” humour, in which someone will ramble awkwardly until they’re stopped, having sufficiently embarrassed themselves for the amusement of the class.

Other times, a character will just start screaming – and you may feel like doing the same thanks to the show’s dire edit job.

The Residence underestimates the intelligence of its viewers to such a degree that a clip of a relevant character is spliced into a scene almost every time that person is brought up by Cupp or Park – and the editors often pick the loudest available.

This does no favours for Mary Wiseman (as White House chef Marvella) or Jason Lee (as the president’s burnout brother Tripp), who gratingly top the decibel levels, with Ken Marino’s aide Harry, Eliza Coupe’s Senator Bix and Edwina Findley’s chatterbox butler Sheila among the other offenders.

The show’s manic editing style also appears during the extended interrogation sequences, which see Detective Cupp’s suspect interviews hyperactively blended together in a manner both repetitious and painfully unfunny.

Almost every character is infuriatingly obnoxious, with notable exceptions being Giancarlo Esposito’s chief usher AB Wynter (another bland boss gig for Hollywood’s most typecast actor) and his overlooked deputy, Jasmine (Susan Kelechi Watson).

Oh yeah, Kylie Minogue is in this too, and that’s fine. Her cameo is honestly a welcome novelty in an otherwise joyless wasteland, but hardly memorable. Aduba and Park, on the other hand, are just tiresome – which is an enormous shame.

I don’t especially blame the cast, though, given that they’ve all turned in plenty of fine work over the years. Surely, the buck has to stop with showrunner Paul William Davies and producer Shonda Rhimes, for whom this is a major misstep.

The complete lack of protagonists that anyone would have a reason to care for is the final nail in The Residence’s coffin, rendering it a murder with no stakes, no momentum and no justice demanding to be served.

And as if fate itself has conspired against the show, it drops on Netflix at a time when many Americans (and countless others around the world) couldn’t be less enthusiastic about roaming the private corridors of the White House.

There, you could plausibly encounter someone even more galling than the outlandish personalities in The Residence – and that might be the most depressing part of all.

The Residence is available to stream on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.

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