Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
There was a time long ago when America was a divided place, riven by tribalism and driven to extremes by dogmatists. American Primeval, Netflix’s new historical saga penned by Mark L Smith (co-writer of The Revenant), takes us back to the 1850s and the fringes of the Utah Territory. There, frontiersmen, Mormons, federal troops and Native American tribes vie for land and power in a strategically significant slice of the ever-expanding West. A bloody conflict rages across sweeping plains, craggy cliffs, pristine snowy forests and squalid makeshift towns that may be settled but remain far from civilised.
Caught in the middle of this is itinerant mother Sara (Betty Gilpin) and her son, on the run from traumas back in the east with the grudging help of tracker Isaac (Taylor Kitsch). They are pursued by reward-seeking mercenaries seeking to capture the wanted woman and child alive, as well as Mormon militiamen whom they witness carrying out a massacre and who want them very much dead. Among the survivors of the barbaric attack are migrating Mormon newly-weds Jacob and Abish (Dane DeHaan and Saura Lightfoot-Leon). They too discover that their own so-called brothers are behind the indiscriminate slaughter, killing in order to claim what they believe is their god-given land.
The fates of these five characters — and those of the people they encounter along the way — unfold over six gruelling and sprawling episodes. The latest offering in TV’s recent Western renaissance, it feels darker and grittier than Taylor Sheridan’s soapy “horse opera” Yellowstone and a world away from the romanticised West of the genre’s heyday.
But while there are flashes of compassion and tenderness that pierce through the darkness, the series largely struggles to balance its punishingly violent set pieces with rewarding character drama. There’s more to both Sara and Isaac than they let on, but the show allows too little time for them to develop. The West may be vast, but there’s apparently not enough room for well-rounded characters.
★★★☆☆
On Netflix from January 9
Source link
