Royal Palm
What happened to Ricky Martin? You remember him, a Puerto Rican pop star, who had a huge hit 25 years ago with the incredibly catchy Livin’ La Vida Loca.
Turns out he was cryogenically frozen at the turn of the millennium and has just been thawed to play a vindictive waiter at America’s snobbiest spa club, in the hilarious Palm Royale (Apple TV+) .
Suspended animation in liquid nitrogen is the only plausible explanation for 52-year-old Ricky’s anti-aging features, but the same can be said for most of the actors.
Comedian Kristen Wiig, 50, bounces around like a teenager, scaling walls and windows while climbing the social ladder as the relentlessly optimistic Maxine.
Even Carol Burnett looks great at 90 and she plays a billionaire in a coma.
In fact, everything about Palm Royale is superb. Loosely based on the novel Mr & Mrs American Pie by Juliet McDaniel, it is set in the ultra-wealthy enclave of Palm Beach, Florida in 1969, bathed in color like a David Hockney painting.
Everything about Palm Royale is superb. Loosely based on the novel Mr & Mrs American Pie by Juliet McDaniel, the film is set in the ultra-wealthy enclave of Palm Beach, Florida in 1969. Pictured: Amber Chardae Robinson
The meanest of the group is Dinah (Leslie Bibb, pictured), who sneers: “Your cover is from the Gucci collection from the 1960s.” Kinda gives you away’
Comedian Kristen Wiig, 50 (pictured), bounces around like a teenager, scaling walls and windows while climbing the social ladder as the relentlessly optimistic Maxine.
The pools are so blue and Maxine’s outfits (borrowed from Carol in a coma) are so pink and yellow that it makes your eyes tingle, like swallowing a handful of E-numbers.
But while Maxine orders a bright green grasshopper cocktail from Ricky, the other ladies at the club smell a fraud. Although she longs to be part of their world, Maxine is not a member. They turn on her like a bunch of mean girls, vying to humiliate her.
The meanest of the group is Dinah (Leslie Bibb), who sneers: “Your cover is from the Gucci collection from the 1960s.” Kind of gives you away.
But Dinah has her own problems. She’s pregnant, by the club’s tennis pro. If her boorish husband finds out, he’ll divorce her, which would be a disaster because she’s waiting for him to have an affair so her lawyers can take her to the cleaners.
This could all be painfully mean and superficial, if Maxine weren’t such an irrepressible optimist.
She is determined that Dinah will like her and confide in her. She is proud of her own origins as a Tennessee pageant queen, and she is sincerely in love with her dusky husband, whose wealthy family has disowned him.
The era is extensively evoked with old cars and clothes, and enough hairspray to burn another hole in the ozone layer.
Palm Royale sends it up, starring Laura Dern (pictured) as a fearsomely serious women’s liberator
The era is extensively evoked with old cars and clothes, and enough hairspray to burn another hole in the ozone layer.
President Richard Nixon constantly walks on the CRT. Even the title sequence is playful and kitsch, with paper cut-out characters designed to remind us of the classic opening sequence of another retro 1960s series, Mad Men.
Mad Men celebrated the birth of feminism. Palm Royale sends it out, with Laura Dern as a fearsomely serious women’s liberator.
Maxine doesn’t see the point of feminism. Giving a pep talk to the girl getting her nails done at the beauty salon, she urges her to find a rich husband: “Don’t you want to grow up one day and not work?” Absolutely, sister.
