Paul William Davies · 2025The Residence
An eagle-eyed detective. A gaggle of cuckoo suspects. And a hoot of a murder in the White House.
The Residence is a rare bird of a show where the unflappable Cordelia Cupp, played beautifully by Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black), leads a wild goose chase at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after chief usher A.B. Wynter is found dead as a dodo.
The script by Paul William Davies is novel and fun, the cast of characters ranges from birdbrained to crazy as a loon, and most interesting of all is the intertwining of Cupp's investigation with chirpings from a later congressional committee hearing.
The result is a dizzying display of finger-pointing and cagey alibis where suspects come home to roost by the dozen, making that chicken-or-egg conundrum of old feel as easy as duck soup.
The cast is stellar on the whole, and Maira Kalman's illustrated title cards are cute as a duckling. The cinematography is gripping with its animated cut-outs of the White House, outdoor time-lapses and bird's-eye view flyovers from room to room, while the set design feels way better than those overcrowded guided tours your mother hen probably forced you on during that one trip to DC.
Riveting from the rooster's first crow to the final swan song. For once, "for the birds" is a compliment.
P.S. There's birding. Did we mention the birding?