Black Mirror ‘Mazey Day’ review: a brisk, bloody bite of celebrity crisis

As Black Mirror episodes have continued to balloon to the size of full-blown movies, season 6’s “Mazey Day” is almost refreshing: it’s a compact 40 minutes that rushes by in a fit of flashing lights. It’s a story about celebrities and their unhealthy and often dangerous relationship to the press — the paparazzi, in particular. It’s fun but, because it moves so quickly, its premise ultimately isn’t explored with much nuance.

“Mazey Day,” from director Uta Briesewitz, is about two characters living in parallel who inevitably clash. To start, there’s Bo (Zazie Beetz), a paparazzi living in LA who is starting to question her place among her seedy and often desperate colleagues, wondering if a more honest living is the better route. Meanwhile, starlet Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard) is shooting a film in Europe but struggling with substance abuse and an I Know What You Did Last Summer type of situation. When Day abruptly returns to Hollywood, she goes into hiding — making her photo a very valuable commodity.

It’s basically the “one last job” trope from heist movies but for creepy celebrity photos. Bo wants to get out of the cutthroat field, but the money for a candid Day photo is too hard to pass up, particularly when her roommate keeps complaining about late rent and missing groceries. So she puts her formidable detective skills to work — seriously, she seems wasted as a paparazzi — and, after seeming to hit a few roadblocks, manages to find her target at an isolated wellness center.

Like many episodes of Black Mirror, the morality here is pretty clear. In this case, it’s impossible to root for the photographers, who use every dirty trick in the book — name-calling, GPS trackers, bribes — to get their images, all while viewing their subjects as undeserving of the most basic of common decency. This point is really driven home once the episode hits its big twist — which I can’t and won’t spoil here — and the paparazzi still don’t stop. Not even mortal danger can make them put those flashing cameras away.

That twist dramatically changes the stakes of the episode and helps it keep up its momentum. But it also inevitably takes the focus away from the paparazzi / celebrity dynamic, except for the very final moment, which, to be fair, is a perfectly fitting (if a little on the nose) image to go out on. “Mazey Day” does a lot right, particularly with its parallel structure, showing two very different ways of coping with a crisis. And it gets genuinely scary at various points, and not just because of the lengths these photographers will go to. But it could’ve used a little more time to explore its various relationships more fully.

In the pantheon of Black Mirror, “Mazey Day” continues the anthology’s shift to less overtly dystopian storytelling. And as a piece of pure horror, it really works: it’s fast, sharp, and when it hits, it really hits. But just like those star-chasing photographers, it really only has time to see things on a surface level.

Black Mirror season 6, including “Mazey Day,” is streaming on Netflix now.

As Black Mirror episodes have continued to balloon to the size of full-blown movies, season 6’s “Mazey Day” is almost refreshing: it’s a compact 40 minutes that rushes by in a fit of flashing lights. It’s a story about celebrities and their unhealthy and often dangerous relationship to the press — the paparazzi, in particular. It’s fun but, because it moves so quickly, its premise ultimately isn’t explored with much nuance.

“Mazey Day,” from director Uta Briesewitz, is about two characters living in parallel who inevitably clash. To start, there’s Bo (Zazie Beetz), a paparazzi living in LA who is starting to question her place among her seedy and often desperate colleagues, wondering if a more honest living is the better route. Meanwhile, starlet Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard) is shooting a film in Europe but struggling with substance abuse and an I Know What You Did Last Summer type of situation. When Day abruptly returns to Hollywood, she goes into hiding — making her photo a very valuable commodity.

It’s basically the “one last job” trope from heist movies but for creepy celebrity photos. Bo wants to get out of the cutthroat field, but the money for a candid Day photo is too hard to pass up, particularly when her roommate keeps complaining about late rent and missing groceries. So she puts her formidable detective skills to work — seriously, she seems wasted as a paparazzi — and, after seeming to hit a few roadblocks, manages to find her target at an isolated wellness center.

Like many episodes of Black Mirror, the morality here is pretty clear. In this case, it’s impossible to root for the photographers, who use every dirty trick in the book — name-calling, GPS trackers, bribes — to get their images, all while viewing their subjects as undeserving of the most basic of common decency. This point is really driven home once the episode hits its big twist — which I can’t and won’t spoil here — and the paparazzi still don’t stop. Not even mortal danger can make them put those flashing cameras away.

That twist dramatically changes the stakes of the episode and helps it keep up its momentum. But it also inevitably takes the focus away from the paparazzi / celebrity dynamic, except for the very final moment, which, to be fair, is a perfectly fitting (if a little on the nose) image to go out on. “Mazey Day” does a lot right, particularly with its parallel structure, showing two very different ways of coping with a crisis. And it gets genuinely scary at various points, and not just because of the lengths these photographers will go to. But it could’ve used a little more time to explore its various relationships more fully.

In the pantheon of Black Mirror, “Mazey Day” continues the anthology’s shift to less overtly dystopian storytelling. And as a piece of pure horror, it really works: it’s fast, sharp, and when it hits, it really hits. But just like those star-chasing photographers, it really only has time to see things on a surface level.

Black Mirror season 6, including “Mazey Day,” is streaming on Netflix now.