selenak: (Max by Misbegotten)
selenak ([personal profile] selenak) wrote2017-11-15 03:53 pm

Alias Grace (TV Review)

aka the tv miniseries based on Margaret Atwood's novel of the same name. I have read said novel, but was many years ago. While I remembered roughly the plot, the characterisations and a few lines that stuck into my memory, many of the details had faded, and thus I didn't do a constant compare and contrast when watching. (Later, I checked, and the tv version is indeed very faithful to the book, minus the cutting and trimming of some subplots.)

Alias Grace could be described as many things: a historical series, a true crime series, an elegant variation of the unreliable narrator principle, a meditation on storytelling and gender - and much more. Margaret Atwood based her novel on the historical figure of Grace Marks, who arrived in Canada from Ireland when she was 12, and got convicted of the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and suspected of murder of his pregnant housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery, at age 15. I mention this above spoiler cut because it's brought up right at the start of both novel and tv show; their story begins about 15 years later, when the imprisoned Grace is also working as a servant in the home of the governor of the penitentiary she's serving time at, and starts to get visits by Dr. Simon Jordan, an alienist (= early version of therapist), who was hired to find out whether she is a "hysteric" rather than a criminal, and what lies behind her claim not to remember the murders.

Sarah Gadon plays Grace, Sarah Polley wrote the adaption, and Mary Harron directed all episodes. All of them deliver superb work. Yes, Sarah Gadon in the flashbacks doesn't look like a 12 or 15 years old girl, but you easily forgive that because she's so very, very good as Grace. Who, as a much later appearing character once observes, is Sherezade, telling stories for her life; what in these stories is true or false depends not just on the beholder and whom she's telling the stories to but how they are framed through the circumstances of Grace's life. If you're easily triggered, Grace goes through a lot of abuse, but it's never filmed exploitatively. At the same time, she's in the present day time frame always in control of herself and her stories, no matter how dire her situation, and that's breathtaking to watch. All the supporting players are excellent as well, up to and including Paul Gross (yes, that one) and Anna Paquin as the two murder victims in waiting. Given how much tv and film in the past and present is about male anger, it's worth pointing out this particular story is about female anger, and not in an easily solved way. And it's an enigma tale. DS9 joke at the end: Garak would approve.
zulu: Carson Shaw looking up at Greta Gill (Default)

[personal profile] zulu 2017-11-15 05:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh, sounds good, thank you for reminding me of this. I haven't read the book though I know the plot vaguely. May have to try both.
chelseagirl: Alice -- Tenniel (Default)

[personal profile] chelseagirl 2017-11-15 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm planning to watch this soon -- glad you enjoyed it so much.
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)

[personal profile] petra 2017-11-16 12:16 am (UTC)(link)
This was some seriously delicious crack to binge-watch after basically all of Murdoch Mysteries.

(I had the worst case of "And *you* were there! And *you*! And *you*!")
bimo: (Terra_incognita)

[personal profile] bimo 2017-11-17 10:53 am (UTC)(link)
Heh, I had already started to wonder when the Alias Grace mini series would spring to your attention... *g*

I know I've been a horrible correspondent lately. Always reading, always wanting to reply, but never quite managing to do so because of Darth Real Life and, no use denying it, also a rather strong case of binge watching. (In early October, Cavendish finally gave in to the temptation of Netflix because of Discovery.)

To cut a long story short, I figured that nodding along to your Alias Grace observations might be the easiest way to signal that I'm still out there. The alternatives would have been either a very long but unfortunately rather half-baked comment on your Blade Runner 2049 entry or a bunch of losely connected Discovery observations.

(I only warmed up to characters and crew during the last three or four episodes, the Mudd time loop episode was the first one that made me feel that Discovery is a show that I'd actively and positively like to continue watching.)

But back to Alias Grace: I've seldom seen an adaption so very bone chilling and consequent in its execution. One final question, though. What do you make of Jeremiah the Peddler?
bimo: (Terra_incognita)

[personal profile] bimo 2017-11-19 10:56 am (UTC)(link)
*nods in agreement*

The perfectly ambivalent take on the supernatural would make a lot of sense to me as well. Especially, since the whole apple peel business is pointing in the same direction.

And because it's Margaret Atwood, you can't even completely exclude that the supernatural explanation - it truly is the ghost of Mary Whitney speaking - is the real one.

I really must catch up on Atwood. Btw., Cavendish recently read Handmaid's Tale and despite his initial hesitation ended up greatly impressed by the novel. The north rhine-westphalian school curriculum requires his students to read one dystopian/utopian novel in class, so he is always looking for material that goes beyond the usual suspects... (He usually offers students a list of about ten potential candidates to chose from and will definitely include Atwood this year.)