Welcome to "WandaVision"

Minor spoilers for the first four episodes ahead. 

"WandaVision" is the first of Marvel's Disney+ series, designed to be tied much more closely into the MCU film franchise, and to tell longer-form stories that aren't a good fit for theatrical films.  This has felt like something of an inevitability for a while, as the MCU has gotten so much bigger, with so many characters who haven't really gotten their due.  For instance, you've got Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), two of the Avengers who had a sweet little romance and tragic parting that was carried out over two "Avengers" films.  However, the storyline happened so fast, and mostly offscreen, it felt like a waste of interesting material.

So, this was the Disney+ series I was the most interested in from the outset.  "WandaVision," created by Jac Shaeffer and directed by Mark Shakman, runs for nine episodes of 20-45 minutes each, and uses the truly weird conceit of Wanda and Vision living out cuddly sitcom lives as doting newlyweds in the charming town of Westview.  Each episode parodies a different era of television, starting with the 1950s, straight out of "I Love Lucy."  The first few installments are played straight, with only hints that something more sinister might be going on.  Eventually we learn that the lovebirds' antics are being transmitted out of town, and they catch the attention of characters like FBI Agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), Captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) of the S.W.O.R.D. intelligence organization, and Dr. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), who proceed to join forces and investigate.

I probably enjoyed the sitcom spoof aspects of the show more than most, and especially appreciated spotting all the little homages and spoofs of various old shows I watched as a kid.  The '50s episode ends with Wanda and Vision's beds being pushed together into a double, to mark the shift to the '60s.  The '80s episode painstakingly recreates the kitchen from "Family Ties," and puts nosy neighbor Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) in workout gear.  Every new version of "WandaVision" gets its own era-appropriate theme song from Robert and Kristen Lopez, wardrobe changes for everyone, and heaps of gorgeous production design.  I liked the meta jokes, the heavy lampshading of various story tropes, and little clues being dropped in the commercials.  The series is also full of easter eggs for comic book fans.  In a Halloween themed episode, Wanda and Vision dress up in the goofy superhero costumes they originally wore in the comics.      

It's great seeing the big budget MCU production values applied to something so much more offbeat and idiosyncratic.  The show is also considerably darker in tone than the bulk of the other MCU films.  The first six episodes, where flaws slowly start to emerge in Wanda's sitcom universe, have some downright disturbing moments that wouldn't be out of place in a David Lynch show.  However, this being a Disney and Marvel project, the third act is exactly as predictable and by-the-numbers as you might expect.  While the show does give Wanda and Vision the space to become more full-fledged personalities, ensures the actors have some strong scenes together, and lets their relationship feel more grounded and mature, there's an awful lot of spectacle and contrivance that has to come with it.  And the spectacle and contrivance is the least enjoyable part of the show.    

All in all I'm satisfied with "WandaVision," and look forward to the rest of the MCU series coming up, but the limitations required to be part of this franchise are all too clear.  There's much more wiggle room when it comes to subject matter and formal conventions, but we still have to have mid-credit and after-credit scenes setting up other MCU projects, consequences are kicked down the road, and everything has to end in a big, loud, fight scene.  

Oh well.  At least we got a few good earworms for our trouble.

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"Mank" and "Ammonite"

Time to get cracking on the prestige films.

I'm not sure what to make of "Mank," a film about the writing of "Citizen Kane," designed to look like a film made in the era of "Citizen Kane."  The subject matter is fascinating - the struggles of Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) to write the "Kane" screenplay, under intense pressure from director Orson Welles (Tom Burke) and studio RKO.  The film paints a picture of Mank as a shambling alcoholic who writes the screenplay while convalescing from a broken leg.  He's aided by a secretary, Rita (Lily Collins), who notices the protagonist of the new script resembles newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance).  A good amount of the film is spent on flashbacks to a younger Mank developing a friendship with Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), and his gradual disillusionment with the Hollywood establishment.

I found it difficult to get on the same wavelength as "Mank."  I knew enough about "Citizen Kane" and its creation to follow along with the action and keep the characters straight, but I didn't find much of the material compelling.  David Fincher is one of my favorite directors, but "Mank" is wildly different from anything else he's made, a black and white period piece that spends the bulk of its efforts on aping the cinematography and filming techniques of the 1940s.  This is all very lovely to look at, but there's no getting away from the fact that the film is slow, lengthy, often very sedate, and if you don't already know and appreciate "Citizen Kane," you're not going to get much help.  "Mank" is stuffed with references to "Kane," but I was surprised at how little direct evocation there was.  On the other hand, "Mank" is clearly not anywhere near the level of "Citizen Kane" in quality, and leaning too heavily on their association would have only made that more obvious. 

Gary Oldman, despite being decades too old for the role, delivers a strong performance as the spiraling Mank, and Amanda Seyfried does an excellent job of making Marion Davies insightful and self-aware.  There's a dinner party scene, where Mank has a drunken tirade, that has the kind of energy I wish had been more present in the rest of the picture.  I like the angle that Mank witnessing the greed and manipulativeness of the studio bosses made him so bitter - and causes "Mank" to be slyly topical - but his relationships with Hearst and Davies aren't established well enough to make their falling out as impactful as it should be.  I can admire everything it took to get this film made, in the way that Fincher wanted, but like most passion projects, "Mank" is inevitably for a very niche audience.  And it's probably saying something that a film nerd like me doesn't feel like part of that niche.  

Now on to "Ammonite," which is very easy, but probably unfair, to characterize as the anti - "Portrait of a Lady on Fire."  It posits a lesbian relationship between two 19th century scientists, Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) and Charlotte Murschison (Saoirse Ronan) in the 1840s.  Anning is a self-taught paleontologist, well known and respected, but not part of the scientific establishment of the time due to her class and gender.  We meet her when her fortunes are on the wane, living with her mother Molly (Gemma Jones) and eking out a living selling fossils near the harsh beaches of Lyme Regis, where she goes searching for new finds daily.  An aspiring geologist, Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), barges into her life one day, and ends up leaving his melancholic young wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) in the Annings' care.  

"Ammonite" is a showcase for Winslet's performance as Mary Anning.  Ronan does good work here as Murchison, a privileged young woman learning to escape tragedy and break out of her shell, but it's Winslet who is the main event.  Anning first presents a brusque, difficult front, a hard shell formed out of necessity after years of poverty and social isolation.  She speaks roughly, moves roughly, and seems to shun human company almost instinctively.  Little by little, Winslet exposes her softer interiors and sad history.  This culminates in a quiet romance with a fairly graphic sex scene.  However, "Ammonite" is less a romance than it is a character study, and doesn't indulge itself in sentiment for very long.  

The dialogue is sparse, and much of the storytelling is done through simply observing the three women living in the harsh environment of the Southern coastline.  Director Francis Lee's images are gray and bleak, and the cold seems to seep through the screen.   In the beach scenes, the crashing waves nearly drown out the dialogue.  Anning is constantly scrubbing, polishing, or meticulously searching out her fossils, putting an emphasis on the hard labor she puts into her work. I like the starkness and the naturalism, which is in such contrast to most period films.  There are few beauty shots here, and little romanticizing of the era. I expect the bleak, unfriendly aesthetics will make this a hard sell to many of the usual fans of costume dramas, which is a shame.

In the end I found "Ammonite" a very powerful cinematic experience.  The prickliness and stubbornness of Mary Anning turn out to hide a truly remarkable and admirable woman.  And the film really provides a sense of what her accomplishments and her way of living required, and the sacrifices that she made to keep doing what she loves.  There are stakes to the romance that give the story a rare impact, and I'm so glad to see Winslet in a role that makes such great use of her talents. 

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Big Ambitions, "Small Axe"

I put off watching the new Steve McQueen anthology series, "Small Axe," thinking that it was your standard television miniseries.  Then, the individual installments started showing up on the year-end "best of" lists - not the lists of best television, but of best films.  So I had some catching up to do.

This is McQueen's most ambitious project by far.  "Small Axe" is a series of five feature films, ranging in length from 63 minutes to over two hours.  Each tells a different story from the Black West Indian immigrant community of London in the 1960s and '70s, charting their fight for social justice and equality.  "Mangrove" follows a court case where demonstrators were subjected to police brutality.  "Red, White, and Blue" profiles one of the first black police officers from the community, while "Alex Wheatle" looks at the life of a prominent writer.  "Education" takes aim at the failings of the education system, while  "Lovers Rock" takes us to a house party where dozens of young people simply have a good time.  In each story, living day to day can be a struggle, and the threat of violence is everywhere.  The films are steeped in West Indian culture, and I confess I had to use subtitles to decipher some of the thick accents and unfamiliar terminology.

    

However, I love how the films are so celebratory of the culture, full of music, dance, food, and family, so many, many Black british actors.  The most prominent stars here are Letitia Wright, who has a supporting role in "Mangrove,"  and John Boyega, who plays the protagonist in "Red, White, and Blue."  But just as impressive are the performances by actors I was unfamiliar with - Shaun Parkes, Barbara Beese, Sheyi Cole, Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, Kenyah Sandy, and many more.  The subject matter is clearly very personal and very dear to Steve McQueen, whose commitment to telling the stories of so many real-life figures and stand-ins for real life figures is clear.  The films are unabashedly political, always staying firmly with the POV of the black community and the cause of social justice.  

I found "Mangrove" and "Red, White, and Blue" to be the strongest installments.  They're the two that are unquestionably feature films, being significantly longer and better developed than the others.  They do the best job of setting up their stakes and characters, and presenting a keen look at particular social ills.  "Mangrove" in particular is my favorite.  It follows Frank Crichlow (Parkes), a black activist who opens the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill and undergoes constant harassment from the local police.  This leads to a demonstration that turns violent, and Crichlow and other activists are arrested and accused of rioting.  The second half of the film is taken up with the fascinating trial of the "Mangrove Nine," which casts a critical eye on the British judicial system.  The sequence of events is so beautifully laid out, and gives us the time to really appreciate all the interests involved.    

"Lovers Rock," however, has been getting the most critical kudos.  It's a very different experience, an immersive visit to a house party where the attendees can dance the night away to their own music and their own rhythm.  We see most of the evening through the eyes of Martha (St. Aubyn), who has to sneak out to attend with her best friend Patty  (Shaniqua Okwok).  They have a few skirmishes with trouble during the night, but for the most part the party is a welcome chance for them to enjoy themselves and connect with each other.  I wish "Lovers Rock" had come later in the lineup of films, because it provides such a welcome respite from the heartbreaking stories of inequality and oppression that characterize most of the others.  Instead, it's all about being young and having a magical night out, which makes it tremendously appealing.  It didn't work as well for me as the more serious "Small Axe" films, but I definitely can appreciate its aims.

Taken all together, "Small Axe" is a beautiful accomplishment.  After years of very good films, I'm so happy that McQueen was able to embrace this material and share this part of himself. There will be inevitable squabbles as to how HBO and the BBC are going to categorize these films for awards time - I expect they'll end up dominating the Made for Television Movie Emmy races - but make no mistake that "Small Axe" is quality cinema.  

  

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"Collective" and "The Painter and the Thief"

It's been an excellent year for documentaries, and my favorites of 2020 so far are both from Europe.

"Collective," is from Romania, named after a 2015 nightclub fire that left 26 dead and dozens more injured.  38 more would later die in hospitals under suspicious circumstances.  The documentary, created after the disaster had already sparked massive social and political upheaval, follows a group of journalists who investigate the failings of the Romanian hospital system.  Directed by Alexander Nanau, "Collective" is composed entirely of footage of events playing out in real-time.  There are no interviews, no talking heads, and little by way of framing devices, aside from some news reports to provide context.  

As a result, "Collective" is wonderfully immersive, and its twists and turns are engrossing to see play out.  The first part of the film largely follows the journalists, lead by Catalin Tolontan, who discovers that a major supplier has been selling diluted disinfectants to hospitals.  The revelation is not nearly as upsetting as the multiple attempts to discredit or challenge the findings, or the discovery that the government apparently knew about the problem for years.  Other health care whistleblowers begin to emerge, leading to the uncovering of more and more corruption in the system.  In the later parts of the film, the focus shifts to the new Minister of Health, Vlad Voiculescu, whose attempts at reform are constantly stymied.  We watch him struggle against disinformation campaigns, political maneuvering, and constant cover-ups as the complicity of more and more figures comes to light.

"Collective" is a sobering picture of a totally dysfunctional health care system that is the symptom of a totally dysfunctional Romanian political culture that runs on a system of bribes and self-dealing.  It's absolutely breathtaking how thoroughly corrupt every agency and institution is, and the lengths to which those in power will go to hide their wrongdoing and deflect blame.  The cost of the corruption couldn't be plainer - unsafe hospitals that provide substandard care, no accountability, and no recourse to fix glaring problems.  The documentary serves as a powerful cautionary tale to those who would take their basic social services for granted, while also providing a stirring portrait of those reformers trying their best to change things for the better.  

Now, on to "The Painter and the Thief."  Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova has two of her most important and valuable paintings stolen from a gallery in Oslo in 2015.  The thieves are quickly identified, and Barbora strikes up an unlikely friendship with one of them,  Karl Bertil-Nordland, a deeply troubled drug addict who claims not to even remember participating in the heist.  Director Benjamin Ree keeps the perspective shifting between the two of them, showing us events first from the perspective of Barbora, and then Bertil, as the film sorts out their complicated, intense relationship.  Initially, Barbora's interest in Bertil seems to be out of compassion, but as they interact more and he becomes a subject for her paintings, Barbora's motives are revealed to be far more complex.   

"The Painter and the Thief" plays out like shameless melodrama, and I had to raise my eyebrows at some of its storytelling choices.  It holds back characters' knowledge of important events and information to make its narrative more exciting.   For example, from Barbora's point of view, we learn that Bertil has been in a car accident and might have been involved in more criminal activity.  Then the film hops back in time a few months to watch how things unfold from Bertil's point of view to fill in the blanks.  However, I appreciate the film's emphasis on keeping a balance between the two of them, because the narrative could have easily been very one-sided.  Barbora narrates the specifics of Bertil's unhappy childhood and his life before becoming a criminal, and later Bertil does the same with Barbora's upbringing and her career as an artist.  It turns out that both of them have their dark sides and personal challenges, though Bertil's are clearly far more destructive, both to himself and everyone around him.  

And it's so touching to watch these two truly connect and support each other.  Fairly early on in the film, there's a scene where Bertil sees a portrait of himself that Barbora has painted, and is so moved he starts crying.  Seeing that her work has had such an effect spurs Barbora to involve herself even more in Bertil's life - perhaps at the cost of her own well-being.  When the film's distributor, NEON, announced plans for a dramatized version of the film, I instantly wanted to reject the notion outright.  "The Painter and the Thief" is such a personal, intimate story that it feels fundamentally wrong to let anyone not directly involved muck around with it.  And I honestly couldn't conceive of anyone making a better film version of this story than the one that already exists.

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My Top Ten Films of 1959

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.

The 400 Blows -  The remarkable thing about Antoine Doinel was that he was allowed to act like a real child, and exist on the silver screen on his own terms.  "The 400 Blows" comes across as such an honest portrayal of childhood because it views the world subjectively from a child's point of view without ever imposing the moral judgments of an adult.  While it doesn't have many of the stylistic features that other New Wave films have, it is considered emblematic of the movement because it is such a deeply personal piece of cinema, a perfect example of filmmaking "in first person singular."

Some Like it Hot - One of the greatest comedies of all time, a cross-dressing romantic farce that puts Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in drag and on the run from mobsters.  It  thumbed its nose at the Motion Picture Production Code, and got away with some wild zingers, including the greatest final line of a movie of all time.  Marilyn Monroe is at her most appealing here, but for me the clear star of the picture is Jack Lemmon gleefully getting to know his feminine side, Daphne.  The scene of him declaring his intentions to get married to Osgood is one of the most delightful things I've ever seen.  

Araya - A documentary on the lives of salt laborers on the Arayan Peninsula of Venezuela.  The community is small, isolated, and seemingly untouched by outside civilization.  Shot in stark black and white, the film's images are very beautiful, even as they reveal an especially difficult and sobering way of life.  The filmmakers not only document the painstaking process of extracting salt from the peninsula, but how it shapes the lives of everyone in the community, their culture and their behavior.  Especially striking are the burial customs of the Arayans, which reflect their all-important ties to the sea.  

Les Cousins -  An idealistic young man becoming disillusioned by life is a common narrative, but I've rarely seen one executed so viciously as Claude Chabrol's malevolent psychodrama, "Les Cousins."  The naive hero is seemingly punished for all his morally upstanding values and good habits, while his profligate cousin succeeds without even trying, and gets the girl in the end.  Of course, it's not as simple as that.  This was only Chabrol's second film, and his style was still coming together.  However, his preoccupations with crime, morality, revenge, and obsession were already very apparent.    

The Bridge - Probably the best film I've seen addressing WWII from the Germans' point of view.  Its scope is very small, focusing on a group of boys from a small town who are conscripted into the fight during the final days of the war, when Germany is being overrun by the American armed forces.  There are some terrific action and suspense scenes, but the film is a tragedy through and through as we witness the hard coming-to-terms that the boys experience as they are faced with real warfare and all its horrors.  Its allegorical storytelling sidesteps most real-world politics, leaning into a potent anti-war message. 

The Nun's Story - A lengthy, but fascinating melodrama that charts the career of a Belgian nun, Sister Luke, who wrestles constantly with her own desires and spiritual difficulties.  Played by Audrey Hepburn, Sister Luke is a rare cinema heroine who struggles honestly with her faith, and the film is unusually nuanced in its portrayal of both her and the Catholic Church.  It's especially interesting on the subjects of obedience and self-abnegation, to the extent that all pride and self-determination are treated as personal faults.  In the end, the film sides with neither the church or the sister, and is stronger for it.

Fires on the Plain - Kon Ichikawa delivers one of the bleakest of all Japanese war films, about an ailing soldier stranded in the Philippines who witnesses all manner of horrors among the abandoned soldiers trying to survive.  Violent and despairing, many viewers balked at the grisly content and the extremes of human behavior that were showcased by the film.  In retrospect, "Fires on the Plain" was far ahead of its time in portraying the darker side of warfare.  I vastly prefer Kon's work here to Masaki Kobayashi's more self-important "Human Condition" trilogy that premiered the same year.  

North By Northwest - Not one of my favorite Hitchcock films, but I can't deny that it's one of his most successful and iconic.  The set pieces are stunners, especially Cary Grant being harassed by a crop duster in a corn field, and the finale taking place on Mount Rushmore.  Even if you don't know the originals, you've seen the countless imitators and spoofs.  The whole spy action/adventure genre owes this film immeasurably.  And speaking of Cary Grant, I don't know why he didn't play spy films more often, because he's so perfect here trying to dodge enemy agents and suspicious characters on the run.   

Pickpocket - I generally don't get along with Robert Bresson films, but I do enjoy "Pickpocket," a tense little crime thriller about a compulsive thief.  It's a very psychological film, focused on the protagonist's inability to control his larcenous impulses, leading to his doom.  The act of theft is not as important as the anticipation of it, as we're shown in several tense sequences where our thief fixates on potential victims.  Bresson makes great use of close-ups and montage here, and it's amazing how much tension and excitement he can evoke from simple shots of hands and pockets and faces.  

Sleeping Beauty - The film marked the end of an era, the last traditionally animated, high budget project that Walt Disney Studios would see during Walt's lifetime.  Using 70mm format, stylized character designs, and a lot of cribbing from Tchaikovsky for the score, "Sleeping Beauty" was designed to be a spectacular, and it certainly fits the bill.  Why I always liked it, though, was I realized that the three good fairies are secretly the heroes of the film, who have just as much narrative emphasis and screen time as Philip and Aurora.  And who could say no to Maleficent, that masterpiece of animated villainy? 

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The Year Asia Ruled the Box Office

The 2020 global box office is going to be a wild outlier for a lot of reasons, but it does provide a tantalizing glimpse of what the moviegoing world would look like if Hollywood was out of the picture.  Five of the top ten, and twelve of the top twenty-five highest grossers of 2020 came from China.  Topping the charts was war movie "The Eight Hundred" with  $472.5 million, and comedic anthology "My People, My Homeland" with $433.2 million.  The highest grossing Hollywood film was "Bad Boys for Life," which managed third place with $424.5 million.

Here's the full chart:

1. The Eight Hundred - $461.3 (millions)

2. My People, My Homeland - $433.2

3. Bad Boys for Life - $426.5

4. Demon Slayer: Infinity Train - $401.4

5. Tenet - $363.1

6. Sonic the Hedgehog - $319.7

7. Dolittle - $245.5

8. Jiang Ziya - $240.6

9. A Little Red Flower - $238.6

10. Shock Wave 2 - $221.7

The other Chinese films are the animated "Jiang Ziya," teen cancer romance "A Little Red Flower," and an action film, "Shock Wave 2." "Demon Slayer: Infinity Train" is the wildly successful Japanese anime film, which is now the highest grossing film ever released in Japan, after dethroning "Spirited Away."  Compare this to 2019, when there were four Chinese films in the top twenty-five, the highest being the animated film "Nezha," in twelfth place with $742.5 million.  "Jiang Ziya" is its sequel, by the by.

I'm not familiar with the majority of these films, but the first thing you notice is how much more genre diversity there is in the Chinese films.  "The Eight Hundred" and "Shock Wave 2" are action films, and "Jiang Ziya" is an animated spectacular, but you've also got "A Little Red Flower," which is a teen romance more or less the equivalent of "The Fault in Our Stars," and "My People, My Homeland," which is a collection of five feel-good comedic shorts promoting Chinese patriotism for the National Day holiday.  Yeah, China's moviegoing culture has some interesting wrinkles to it, so I should add some caveats here.

   

Keep in mind that China still severely limits how many and what kind of non-Chinese films can be exhibited in China.  The biggest box office dates in China are Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day, and National Day in October, when Hollywood films are often shut out of theaters completely.  A big controversy erupted last year when a US and Chinese co-production, "Monster Hunter," saw its Chinese release cancelled over a joke deemed to be racially insensitive.  The "Demon Slayer" movie had its release in China delayed for similar reasons.  These kinds of protectionist and censorship issues are not unique to China, but they're more stringent about them than most, and they get more press because China now has the world biggest market for theatrical films.

Because the pandemic hit the US so much harder than Asia, the few major Hollywood films that were released in 2020 were more dependent on Chinese and international audiences than ever.  Covid had a significant impact on China, causing a nearly 66% decrease in box office receipts from the previous year, but that was still far better than in the US, where the box office was down 80%. "Tenet" only made 16% of its total gross domestically, and its biggest audience turned out to be China, where it earned $66 million.  However, China definitely benefited from decreased competition.  Foreign films made up 16% of ticket sales in 2020, compared to 36% the year before.   

At the time of writing, at the end of February, Chinese films comprise the entire global top ten box office earners.  A family comedy, "Hi Mom," is at number one, with $663.9 million.  I don't expect it'll stay that way as the COVID quarantines end, and delayed Hollywood blockbuster titles start rolling out at last.  Still, China's audiences continue to grow, and the film industry finally seems to be finding its footing.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if 2020 is a preview of things to come.   

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An Updated "Brave New World"

Spoilers ahead.

I ended up with full access to NBC's new streaming service Peacock for a weekend, which is pretty bare at the moment.  It has exactly one show that I wanted to watch, the new adaptation of Aldous Huxley's dystopian "Brave New World" from Davd Wiener and Grant Morrison.  I had no trouble polishing off all nine episodes.

As a science-fiction fan, I've seen many attempts to update older classics with some pretty terrible results.  The Ramin Bahrani take on "Fahrenheit 451" wasn't that long ago.  Here, there are all sorts of additions and departures from the novel's troubling dystopian society that are sure to cause raised eyebrows.  In addition to the class system of "Levels" that rank everybody from Alpha Plus to lowly Epsilon, and the endless popping of mood-regulating  Soma pills, there's the internet-like surveillance network Indra.  It connects everyone together through squicky optical devices and helps to guarantee that nobody has any privacy.  There are also the Monds, the mysterious world-controllers who seem to be pulling the strings behind the scenes.  The series uses them to explore the origins and past of the Utopian system.   

The biggest change, however, is that John the Savage (Alden Ehrenreich) is no longer the most prominent character.  Oh, he's an important piece of the series and his origins are more or less kept intact.  However, he doesn't have anything close to the same personality or character arc.  The Shakespeare-quoting, morally upright John of the novel has been morphed into a broody, working-class youngster whose swears casually, and listens to pop songs with an ancient music player and headphones.  More importantly, the two New Londoners who bring him back from the Savage Lands have seen their roles vastly expanded and changed.  Lenina Crowne (Jessica Findlay-Brown), John's love interest, becomes more self-aware over the course of the series, pushing at boundaries and inciting trouble.  Bernard Marx (Harry Lloyd) is still jealous and insecure, but also much more active and ambitious.  Findlay-Brown and Lloyd are both awfully good, maybe better than the material deserves.

In short, this take on "Brave New World" might borrow a lot of the world building and character names, but it's not telling anything close to the same story.  There is a lot of invented material to fill out nine episodes, including several major characters and a completely new ending.  And frankly, that's not such a bad thing.  Sure, John inciting an uprising among the lower classes and Indra turning out to be an evil AI are completely unnecessary and cliche as hell, but the expanded narrative also helps the series to deliver characters that are far more nuanced, sympathetic, and relatable.  The treatment of sex and relationships is updated to match modern standards, but still addresses Huxley's concerns about the breakdown of traditional bonds.  Notable figures who get more of the spotlight include a troubled Epsilon, CJack60 (Joseph Morgan), the world-controller Mustafa Mond (Nina Sosanya), Lenina's friend and rival Frannie (Kylie Bunbury), and John's alcoholic mother Linda (Demi Moore).

"Brave New World" also finds ways to deliver some good social satire and critique.  The Savage Lands, home to those who have chosen not to be part of the system, are now a garish theme-park version of America at its trashiest, featuring tours that allow New Londoners to gawk at live reenactments of Black Friday shopping sprees and shotgun weddings.  And they do gawk, with undisguised enjoyment of the poverty porn and feigned brutality.  There's a character named Helm (Hannah John-Kamen), who is essentially a professional party-planner/conceptual artist.  Her events, or "feelies," are a parody of Hollywood blockbuster cycles.  John's status as a novelty in New London is a good riff on celebrity culture.  I like that the show has a sense of humor about itself, and it's genuinely fun to see some of the culture clash between John and the hedonistic New Londoners.  The Soma dispensers being simultaneously clicked during awkward moments never gets old.       

The show looks very expensive, with everyone fabulously dressed and constantly attending parties and orgies.  The Indra AR interfaces and freaky contact lenses are also awfully convincing.   This is the first adaptation of the novel that has a mature rating, allowing for the depiction of sex and mild nudity, which is perfectly appropriate thematically.  There's also a lot of violence, which I found less so.  Really, does every piece of dystopian fiction these days need to end with a revolution?

"Brave New World" is an entertaining watch, and I enjoyed its take on the themes of the book, in spite of some big, glaring flaws.  Those wanting something more faithful, however, are advised to look elsewhere.
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