Jamie Dornan’s turn in The Tourist will make you forget about Christian Grey

It takes a big person to admit that they were wrong, which makes it so hard for an actor to shift the established opinion of them within the culture and critical establishment. It seems that HBO’s The Tourist may just do something truly Herculean, and make all the Jamie Dornan naysayers admit he’s actually a pretty good actor.

Not that people were without reason to doubt Dornan’s talents. When he first came to international attention, it was as Christian Grey, a kinky but bland billionaire in the 50 Shades trilogy. Those films were never considered high art, but have aged like warm milk, along with Dornan’s comments that he researched his role as the serial killer in The Fall by stalking unsuspecting women. But credit where it’s due—Dornan now joins the ranks of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and former co-star Dakota Johnson as a person who made interesting choices after their franchise ended and looks to become one of our credible millennial actors. The actor delighted audiences in recent hits like Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar and Belfast.

This six-episode HBO Max series starts with one of the great tropes of melodramas—total amnesia befalls a handsome stranger after a terrible car crash, leaving him unable to remember so much as his own name. A kindly rookie police officer named Helen (Danielle Macdonald) takes pity on him and hopes to help him recover some, if not all, of his memories. Armed with nothing more than a note with a restaurant name and a time, the man sets out on his quest to figure out who he is and what he is doing in the remote Australian outback. To say much more would spoil much of the fun, and boy, is The Tourist fun. Some of the early twists follow may well-worn paths, but there’s no way to predict the roller-coaster ride ahead.

Macdonald gets to use her native Australian accent to play a character with parallels to Fargo’s beloved Marge Gunderson, a folksy moral compass whose instincts prove invaluable. But where Marge was a well-respected detective in a loving marriage, Helen can only dream of the same. She is undermined both professionally and personally. One of the most enjoyable supporting characters is her spectacularly awful fiancé Ethan (Greg Larsen), who shames her for eating burgers, complains about her desire for high thread-count sheets, and labels her ambition as “delusions of grandeur” (which he repeatedly mispronounces). Even in a world of abundant brutality, it’s not hard to want a little more of it pointed in Ethan’s direction. It’s a credit to Larsen’s performance that he creates a man so intolerable, it’s worth continuing watching just for Helen’s inevitable realization that she’s far too good for him.

Though a good breakup is reason enough to stay engaged, The Tourist also does great cinematic work in its action sequences. We open with the amnesia-causing incident, where Dornan, driving alone in a dusty compact car through the Outback, singing along to Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes,” is pursued by a giant truck. At first, it seems like he’s just come across an asshole driver, but the moment it clicks that this is a many-wheeled high-speed weapon is utterly terrifying. The chase feels more horror film than TV action sequence, a tone that runs throughout the many moments of violence The Tourist puts on screen. Every crunch of bone, severed artery, and choke of breath feels visceral and impressively horrific. Much like Fargo, part of the fun of The Tourist is breaking up humorous moments among sweet local eccentrics with breathtaking cruelty. And those tonal shifts are expertly employed by the supporting cast, particularly Shalom Brune-Franklin, Damon Herriman, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and Alex Dimitriades, who pack all the intrigue of film noir alongside some great humor and convincing derangement.

Twists aside, The Tourist lags in the middle act, but is buoyed by a distinctly adult tone—there’s a gameness to it that makes the scary, horny, and darkly comic elements work well in tandem. Each twist (and they’re deployed every 15 minutes or so) beyond the second episode lands with full weight, particularly in the final episode where Dornan’s acting chops reach their apex.

It’s hard to imagine that The Tourist will have a seismic impact—the era of excellent television is a thankfully crowded one, and little here breaks new ground. But it’s an absolute hoot to travel down the series’ dusty Australian roads, taking in the trippy, almost Lynchian tangents through fractured minds and broken memories. Anti-hero narratives are familiar for a reason, and The Tourist keeps them as compelling as ever; even when it treads familiar territory, it’s never a bore. The paradigm of TV thrillers may not be shifted, but many people’s perceptions of Jamie Dornan will never be the same.