"Unfortunate Events," Year One

I always intended to watch Netflix's "A Series of Unfortunate Events," but I wanted to read the books first.  This took me much longer than I anticipated, and frankly about halfway through I stopped enjoying the experience.  However, I still wanted to have a look at the series, which has  an all star cast, and most of its installments are directed by Barry Sonnenfeld or legendary production designer Bo Welch.  "Unfortunate Events" author Daniel Handler is also credited as writer on roughly half of the episodes.

Fans of the series will be happy to learn that the show directly adapts all thirteen books, splitting most of the volumes into two episodes and adding some extra material.  Lemony Snicket (Patrick Warburton) narrates the sad tale of the three Baudelaire children, inventor Violet (Malina Weissman), bookworm Klaus (Louis Hynes), and bitey baby Sunny (Presley Smith), who are orphaned after a terrible fire.  They are sent by the ineffectual banker Mr. Poe (K. Todd Freeman), first to live with the evil Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris), who wants their enormous fortune, and later on to a series of other homes and guardians, though never for long.  Misfortune and misery seem to follow the Baudelaires wherever they go.

I liked the 2004 "Unfortunate Events" film starring Jim Carrey very much, which allowed him to play the over-the-top villain, Count Olaf, in a beautifully exaggerated, sinister storybook world.  Sonnenfeld and company have done the best they can to capture that same whimsy and  fantastical verve in their series, mostly to good success, but without Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography, the difference is pretty clear just from watching the trailers.  Neil Patrick Harris is a good choice for Olaf, and especially handy with a song number, but wisely doesn't try to reach Carrey's level of physical flamboyance.  Harris's Olaf is sneakier, more weasley, and better at the wordplay.  Book fans can look forward to plenty of Easter eggs and the occasional meta commentary.

There are a couple of extra characters and subplots to keep things interesting, even if you have read the books.  Mother (Cobie Smulders) and Father (Will Arnett) get a scene or two in each episode, mid-secret mission, as they try to make their way back to their children.  Sara Canning and Patrick Breen play other agents of the mysterious organization that seems to be working behind the scenes, and keep popping up to try and aid the Baudelaires or their friends.  The ensemble is also pretty strong, with K. Todd Freeman being a particular standout as the exasperating, but likably dense Mr. Poe.  Some great guest stars show up for an episode or two, including Joan Cusack, Rhys Darby, and Alfre Woodard.

The trouble with the show, unfortunately, is the same one that I had with the books.  The Baudelaire children aren't very interesting protagonists, and exist in a world that forces them to go through some of the same dilemmas and difficulties again and again.  Nobody will listen to them, and the odds are always against them.  Their wonderful talents and refusal to give up always save the day,  but the repetitive structure inevitably gets tedious.  There are some characters who are allowed to be smarter, and some events set up better, so at least the writers were aware of the issues.  The show's faithfulness to the books, however, meant there was only so much they could do.  Neither of the main child actors do anything interesting with the mannered dialogue either, though I appreciate that the show's creators let them try.  The baby gets some of the best lines through subtitled babble.

"Unfortunate Events" worked better as a concept twenty years ago, when the YA genre was still getting off the ground, and Handler's subversions of typical juvenile fiction were still novel.  This kind of story doesn't have the same impact anymore, though I admire the commitment to bringing the whole series to the small screen.  I would have preferred seeing the movie series continued, but the Netflix version will do fine.  I'm in no hurry to finish it, so it may be a while until you see a review of the rest of "Unfortunate Events."

---