Task: Love and Death

Task concluded its seven-episode first season on HBO Max tonight -- and I hope it is the first of more than one season, because the series is an unusual and ultimately winning combination of love and death.

I don't mean only romantic love, though Task has some of that, too.  But this series has a love of what is, for want of a better word, nature.  Every episode has birds, feeding and chirping.  Crucial characters swim and connect to something greater in lakes and ponds.  There's a lush greenery that comes from the Pennsylvania wild that I'm familiar with, because I've seen a lot of it in New York and Cape Cod.

But the show is an FBI story, and the FBI in this story is looking into drugs and interstate murders, not white collar crimes.   And death is meted out in all kinds of ways, usually in bullets.  Any life, FBI or criminal, is possibly forfeit at any time.  But even in crime and its policing, there is a tempering element.  The lead person in the narrative, agent Tom Brandis (perfectly played by Mark Ruffalo), used to be a priest.  He's experienced death in both his personal and both professional lives, priest and agent.   His ultimate problem is not to identify and bring to justice the criminals he pursues, but how to forgive. Indeed, forgiveness is such an underlying, undulating presence in Task, Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter” could easily have been its theme song.

His counterpart is a criminal with many lovable aspects.  Robbie (perfectly played by another Tom -- Tom Pelphrey) is in effect a mirror-image, a counterpart, of Tom Brandis. The two even look somewhat alike.  Both are highly intelligent and empathetic, and seek to protect those around them, to the best of their flawed abilities.

And just about everyone in this story needs protection, because death is always close and at hand. Sometimes its killingly cold clutch is predictable, sometimes it's a shocking surprise.  Loose ends abound.  Most but not all are resolved in the end.

Hence my hope for a second season.  The birds are still chirping.  Nature never dies.

The Adam Project: Impact of Time Travel on the Family

Just saw the The Adam Project, a pretty good time-travel movie on Netflix.  Here's a pretty much non-spoiler review:

Adam from the future travels back to 2022, meets his younger, 12-year old self, and enlists him (his younger self) in preventing their father, Louis, from inventing time travel.  If you think that set-up invokes all kinds of time-travel paradoxes -- starting with wouldn't his younger self remember all of this, and wouldn't that create a distortive loop that would upend his life -- you'd be right.

I've found you can pretty much divide time travel stories into those that respect and attempt to deal with these kinds of paradoxes, and those that don't.  12 Monkeys, the 1995 movie, would be an example of among the best attempts to deal with the paradoxes, as would Déjà vu in 2006.  I usually don't waste time critiquing turkeys of movies and TV shows, so I won't mention the far greater number that ignore or don't bother to pay much attention to the paradoxes.

I said The Adam Project was pretty good, because it at least acknowledged some of the paradoxes.  But its solutions were just hand-waving -- saying if a character disturbed time in such and such a way, it would be ok because -- and didn't really supply an explanation.  The net result: it was enjoyable as time travel movie, but not great, and its real strengths reside elsewhere.

Those would be in the family story, buttressed by two very talented stars -- Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner -- who act great and play Adam's father and mother.  Walker Scobell as young Adam was also quite good, and Ryan Reynolds as adult Adam was ok (Tom Cruise was originally supposed to play the part, back when the movie was first conceived in 2012).   All of this added up to the sacrifices made by Louis being meaningful and even memorable.

So ... if you're devotee of time travel, as I am, see the movie.  You'll enjoy it, even if you're not rewarded with brilliant renditions of the paradoxes.

                                                        a little time travel story -- free

I Know This Much Is True: Much, True, and Worth Watching

My wife and I binged I Know This Much Is True, which ended its six-episode run last night on HBO.  Let me say this about the mini-series for starters:  If you thought Jude the Obscure was a grim narrative, wait until you see I Know This Much Is True.  But do see it.

This is the story of twins, Dominick and Thomas Birdsey.  Neither one is well adjusted.  They don't know who their father is, and their step-father is harsh and abusive.  Thomas, the difficult of the two boys, grows into a schizophrenic as a young man.   He's not a danger to others, but he is a serious danger to himself.

Dominick has to deal with this, after understandably not helping things at all when he was a boy.  In addition, he suffers a life-crushing experience that has nothing to do with Thomas.  This is what I mean about being in Jude the Obscure territory.   One soul-piercing experience is more than enough for most tragic dramas.   Two, unrelated to each other, is, well, over the top or at least a little hard to take.

And Mark Ruffalo's acting as both brothers is so powerfully effective that you have no problem believing all of this is happening.  He deserves an Emmy for best actor.  And speaking of Emmys, so does Rosie O'Donnell, as supporting actress playing social worker Lisa Sheffer.  O'Donnell brings just the right mix toughness and empathy to this role, and along with Ruffalo she'll bring tears to your eyes, if you have anything close to a beating heart.

So see I Know This Much Is True, expertly written and directed by Derek Cianfrance, based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Wally Lamb, which I haven't read and don't intend to because, well, no offence, but Thomas Hardy's 1895-1895 Jude the Obscure was more than enough.