Look below the charming surface of the story, such as it is, to "Les Arts Florissants," and you see Charpentier the savvy operator and insightful psychologist at work.
Fear of narcissism is a little different than fear of sociopathy or psychopathy; it's about fakeness, and performance, about the possibility that someone can seem to have a warm, charming surface, but under the surface, total absence of empathy, total emptiness.
The charming surfaces have dark undercurrents, as in the scarily distorted head called "Punitive Parent" (Johnson).
The show is a crowd-pleaser, and it doesn't take long to figure out why: most audiences are reacting to its charming narrative surface.
Canadians, as I observed last time out, are not "nice," i.e., not patiently insipid — in fact, no sooner had I pointed out the rich inner life of appetite that runs beneath the charming, smiling surface of Canadian womanhood then the glorious Canadian women's hockey team dramatized it for all time, right there at center ice with cigars and a champagne bottle.
By Adam Gopnik March 1, 2010 Canadians, as I observed last time out, are not "nice," i.e., not patiently insipid — in fact, no sooner had I pointed out the rich inner life of appetite that runs beneath the charming, smiling surface of Canadian womanhood then the glorious Canadian women's hockey team dramatized it for all time, right there at center ice with cigars and a champagne bottle.
Charming, charming, charming" by NPR.
Screen persona: Suave, sardonic, sexy villain, charming on the surface but secretly bent on the destruction of either Los Angeles (as Hans Gruber in Die Hard), the moral probity of the pre-revolution French aristocracy (as Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses) or the redistributive economy of Sherwood Forest (as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves).
He's a South Korean Gatsby, charming on the surface, but there is something "off" about him.
The portrait of the young man, who is never named (neither is she: names are a handhold the world has on you), is a kaleidoscope of surfaces, charming, odd and imperiled.
Two woodpeckers on a grass verge are looking, she tells us, for ants; moles, attracted by the shallow, less compacted ground produced by wet weather, leave evidence of their passing; and worms, which any enthusiastic "worm-charming child" knows, break surface as a result of the tapping rain (though you can replicate the effect with a watering can).
