The Crimson Petal and the White (DVD)

Enter a Victorian England you’ve never seen: gritty, dark, and unsettling. Based on Michel Faber’s international bestseller, this four-part BBC series follows the fortunes of Sugar (Romola Garai, Atonement, Emma), a notorious prostitute who longs for a better life. Sexually adept, ambitious, and clever, she casts a spell on William Rackham (Chris O’Dowd, Bridesmaids, The IT Crowd), feckless heir to a perfume business and husband to a wife slipping slowly into insanity. As their lives intertwine, events are set in motion that will change them forever. This provocative psychological thriller boasts a stellar cast and a boldly original look and feel, exposing 1870s London as a place where violence and madness lurked everywhere. Garai is “electric” (The Telegraph Magazine, U.K.), O’Dowd “a revelation” (The Daily Telegraph, U.K.), and Amanda Hale “brilliant” (The Times, U.K.) as Rackham’s wife, Agnes. With Gillian Anderson (Bleak House, The X-Files) as monstrous madam Mrs. Castaway and Richard E. Grant (Gosford Park) as creepy Dr. Curlew, “this striking Gothic melodrama…[is] lurid in the best sense” (The Scotsman, U.K.).