Palm Royale has an inescapable charm, but there are so many issues bubbling beneath the surface. Come for the incredible cast and colorful, impeccable design, but stay for the underlying social commentaries on gender, race, and sexuality. And, of course, have a good time while doing it. Do not be fooled by its glossy exterior, because Palm Royale has a lot on its mind. Producing partners Laura Dern and Jayme Lemons have collaborated on many projects that bring women’s issues to the forefront, and Palm Royale should be taken seriously for how its sly wit masks the deliverance of multiple emotional truths.
Many characters who call the Palm Royale a home away from home have their heads in the sand. They are busy trying to one-up one another to be named volunteer of the year or trying to have the most flattering outfit while attending any number of extravagant balls thrown during the height of the season. Dern’s Linda is actively trying to remove herself from that world as she can see how that level of wealth can rot the very nature of society.
Jaywalker Pictures, formed by Dern and Lemons in 2017, has backed productions with undeniable emotional cores. Tiny Beautiful Things, adapted from Cheryl Strayed’s collection of essays, centered on a woman, played by Kathryn Hahn, who is still reverberating from her experiences and choices from her teenage years. As she struggles through the crumbling of her marriage, we notice that everyone has a perspective or voices an opinion about everything in her life. How she parents, how she treats her husband, how she uses her sexuality to cope and so on.
It made me think about how the women of Palm Royale are expected to be devoted or expected to act, dress, and behave a certain way. Men are constantly commenting on what they think women should be doing, and that parallel is ever-present throughout Palm Royale. At that time most women were financially dependent on their husbands as a means of survival (we see that throughout the arc of Leslie Bibb’s character, Dinah), but the seeds of control of women are always being planted. Jaywalker is set to produce the adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Forever, Interrupted and set to star Dern and Margaret Qualley.
Audiences might assume that Palm Royale is just a handsomely made comedy, and while absurdity comes into play at times, the emotionality of each of these characters is at stake. Jaywalker Pictures is interested in ripping down expectations of characters to reveal their honest truths. Abe Sylvia’s series deserves each of its 11 nominations, but when the party of the season of 1969 comes to an end, the women at its center are ready to show you what else they’re made of.
Palm Royale is streaming now on Apple TV+.
