Microexpressions and The Diplomat

I had a dream the other night that was all about microexpressions. We hear a lot these days about microexpressions: those tiny “tells” that allow an expert poker player to crack the code of another player’s supposedly inscrutable poker face.

In crime fiction, certain detectives have a gift for interviewing suspects who are determined to give nothing away. These skilled interviewers read the microexpressions that betray the suspects as they exercise their right to remain silent or reply to every question with, “No comment.” Estelle Ryan’s brilliant protagonist Dr Genevieve Lenard, in an art-themed series set in Strasbourg, and Laurie R. King’s latest protagonist, San Francisco Homicide Inspector Raquel Laing, both have this gift. On TV, the series Lie to Me (2009-2011) comes to mind.

I woke up (no, sorry, folks, not with the whole plot of a new novel) realizing that screen acting, with its many closeups and visual moments with no dialogue, relies heavily on microexpressions. This may sound obvious, but in the past, I’ve missed it. I know this because there have been many occasions on which the screen has focused on a character’s face, or the faces of two characters saying nothing to each other for an extended period, and I’ve been bored. I might have compared the pace to that of paint drying. I might even have clicked and turned off the show on the grounds that nothing was happening. The other morning, my insightful unconscious pointed out to me that I was wrong. The actors were acting, conveying what was happening within and between their characters through microexpressions. Sherlock Holmes might have said to me, as he did to Watson, “You see, but you do not observe.”

It follows that the better the acting, the more use the director and editor can make of microexpressive moments. Obversely, good actors tend to make good use of microexpressions Our appreciation as audience may not be entirely conscious, but the proof is that what’s happening onscreen engages us fully. The Diplomat on Netflix is an excellent example.

It stars Keri Russell as the American Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Rufus Sewell as her loose cannon of a career diplomat husband, both brilliant actors at the height of their careers. In the current Season 4, Hal Wyler (Sewell) has become Vice President of the US, with Allison Janney giving a bravura performance as Grace Penn, a President of the US going off the rails, making increasingly reckless unilateral decisions that put world peace in danger and off-with-your-heading anyone who disagrees with her like Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen herself. The first three seasons played on the big stage typical of a political drama. Creator Debora Cahn chose to make this season a kind of chamber opera, focusing closely on three couples: Kate and Hal Wyler; the President and the First Gentleman (Bradley Whitford); and Ali Ahn as the CIA London Station Chief and Atoh Essandoh as the Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in London.

I wasn’t sure this character-focused version of the show would work, but it did. For one thing, the dialogue crackled with life. In a sense, The Diplomat is a child of The West Wing, as I guessed the first time I heard that familiar, “Ya think?” as a sardonic comeback. Debora Cahn is listed second after showrunner and lead writer John Wells after creator Aaron Sorkin left The West Wing. And Allison Janney and Bradley Whitmore were so memorable in their West Wing roles that to this day, if I mention Janney or Whitmore to my husband, who tends to forget actors’ names, I can say, “You know, CJ and Josh,” and then he’ll know who I mean.

The story is compelling, to say the least. Apparently Cahn didn’t mean to parallel the headlines, but this season avoiding the moral questions of today’s reality “became absurd.” It wouldn’t work, though, without the superb acting of the principals.

Microexpressions come into play during scenes like a gala and a meeting of the G7 heads of state and top diplomats, when the Wylers watch President Penn across the room as she smiles, shakes hands, and kisses cheeks and they try to discern how far she’ll go to pursue her agenda. And Kate Wyler’s face is never still as she juggles the increasingly unstable balls of her loyalty to the country she represents, her obligation to the country to which she is ambassador, her marriage, her friendships, her professional relationships, many with people who are also her friends, her ethics, her impatience for solutions, and her desire to do the right thing.