‘White Lines’: Inside Netflix’s drug-fuelled tribute to Ibiza
From Madchester to the White Isle – get the full story on TV's pill-popping ode to acid house
As soon as I read the script, I just knew,” says actor Daniel Mays, remembering his first encounter with Netflix mystery-thriller White Lines. “I got to the scene with the banana, the cocaine and the dogs and that was it: I was sold.”
In the eagerly-anticipated new show, which is already being hailed as the hit of the summer, Mays plays Marcus – a washed-up, 40-something DJ living in Ibiza who dabbles in drug-dealing to make ends meet. In episode one, we see Marcus’ supplier deliver a giant, inflatable banana full of cocaine to his house. As Marcus tries to move it out of sight, the banana splits, leaving a trail of coke across his garden. Moments later, Marcus’ dog starts to lap up the powder, before feeling the inevitable effects – and later collapsing.
“And then, and then…” Mays says excitedly as he talks to NME over video call, “there’s the bit where I resuscitate the dog. When I filmed that, I jumped in the pool, swam over to this pretend dog thing they had, dragged it out and I’m pumping it’s chest like…” Mays starts to demonstrate some frantic CPR moves. “And then I remember turning to the director and asking, ‘Well, how was that then?’” The director shook his head at him. “He said: ‘Danny, the tail dropped off the dog as soon as you came out of the pool. We’ll have to go again.’”
White Lines is a furious cocktail of action, suspense, drama and – as Mays story illustrates – frequent hilarity. Set between ‘90s Manchester and club-laden Ibiza, it’s gonzo television that flits across the serious and the surreal as it attempts to uncover who is responsible for a homicide. Yet this is no straight-forward murder-mystery. It’s more of a whodunnit on acid with a killer soundtrack to boot (there’s The Prodigy, Portishead and Primal Scream for starters).
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | September 21, 2020 2:26 AM
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Thanks for the rec. Will queue this up later.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | May 13, 2020 2:16 PM
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I watched six of the ten episodes and like it. Look forward to seeing the rest.
It's nothing near as good nor as memorable as La Casa de Papel, maybe due to the characters being rather uniformly unlikable and mono-dimensional ('Boxer' and 'Marcus' the exceptions; also Bélen López as 'Concita Califat', stunning looks and a good if largely silent performance as an interesting character.)
The dead brother/dj is a purely obnoxious character, painful to look at at his best, seriously ugly, like a German expressionist explosion of pain (yet is described by characters as "such a beautiful man." There's not much time spent by the viewer in agonizing over his loss; and his sister, the lead character, is not terribly sympathetic either, burdened with too much backstory about psychological damage and 20 lost years.
Spanish films and series excel at claustrophic drama where characters are revealed layer by contradictory layer, and there's not much of that here which is part of the disappointment for me, Still, it doesn't look like they cut too many corners in filming, it's pretty lushly done and some of the landscapes are stunning, the Almería scenes especially. Also interesting that it is presented as a mix of English and Spanish, smart for marketing I suppose but it was done with some care so as to seem a series of natural shifts.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | May 20, 2020 11:18 AM
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English people don’t know anything about Ibiza, except that they ruined it. This looks extremely stupid.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | May 20, 2020 11:41 AM
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Clubs cancelled May, and June. I guess British twits people can content themselves with this stupid show or Benidorm repeats. Ha.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | May 20, 2020 11:59 AM
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This is awful, terrible plot and even worse actors. netflix has too much new mediocrity lately.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | May 20, 2020 11:36 PM
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RIght R6, the more I watched the worse the plot, the less I liked it. Not the worst thing I've seen in my confinement, but disappointing but there was reason to have hoped for more.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | May 21, 2020 10:12 AM
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Yeah. I'm watching it, but Christ it's a slog.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | May 21, 2020 9:41 PM
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It's just not very good. I bet it was expensive as hell to make too.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | May 22, 2020 3:44 PM
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I'm halfway through the first episode and literally nothing interesting has happened and the female lead's accent is grating beyond belief. I gather I should just bail now rather than stick with it and hope it gets better?
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | May 23, 2020 6:37 PM
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What's the original dub, English or Spanish? The corrupt cop from Toy Boy is in this. And is there a gay character and gay themed plot?
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | May 23, 2020 7:37 PM
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R11: It's filmed in both Spanish and English, more English as I recall. It's Netflix, so you can chose voice/dubbing and captions.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | May 23, 2020 8:37 PM
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Their version of Manchester was straight out of a 60s Ken Loach, movie even though it was set one year before the original Queer As Folk.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | June 22, 2020 5:30 AM
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A bit late to the party (excuse the pun), having just binged it over 3-4 days. It's not great but it was a reasonably entertaining thriller until the last two episodes when it went too far up its ass and turned solipsistic, with the main character who is up to that point a hedonistic, abominable asshole turning all introspective for no apparent reason. Also, that alt-right asshole Laurence Fox's charlatan guru character was way over the top: the scene when the Calafat family are pouring their guts in front of him made me roll my eyes. The weird thing is that a lot of the soundtrack consisted of late 80's/very early 90's UK rave hits and yet the flashback scenes were set in the period of 1997-2000.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | September 21, 2020 2:26 AM
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