John Steinbeck’s villain finally gets her own show. Netflix’s new seven-part adaptation of East of Eden, created by Zoe Kazan, is built around Cathy Ames, played by Florence Pugh. Early reviews suggest it is one of the more closely watched prestige dramas of the autumn.
The Hollywood Reporter listed the miniseries as the opener of Netflix’s October slate. It described it as a showcase for Pugh’s acting.
A family inheritance
Steinbeck’s 1952 novel was first filmed in 1955 by Elia Kazan. NPR notes that the new series comes from his granddaughter, Zoe Kazan, who also directed it. Christopher Abbott plays Adam Trask.
The runtime matters. According to NPR, the series runs about seven hours, a little longer than the older version. Roger Ebert’s site points out that this lets it cover far more of the book than the 1955 film, which dealt with only the last third or so.
Even so, NPR says the series largely drops the Irish American family from the novel. Roger Ebert’s site adds that even seven hours cannot hold every plot beat in a book this large.
Giving Cathy a voice
Most of the critical attention has gone to Cathy. Variety describes her as the novel’s Eve and temptress figure. It says the series opens with her rather than with the Salinas Valley, as the book does. Pugh is also an executive producer, and Variety suggests that the chance to play Cathy across decades drew her back to television. The role takes her from vulnerable girl to reluctant wife to madam.
NPR reports that Cathy has more justification for her actions here than in earlier versions. She also narrates her own childhood, where Steinbeck’s narrator did that job. NPR also finds Pugh’s Cathy more glamorous than in earlier screen versions, which showed her older and arthritic.
Reviewers do not read this as a rehabilitation. Roger Ebert’s site says Cathy stays an unrepentant sociopath through all seven episodes. She burns down her family home, commits several murders and abandons her children. The series, it argues, gives her depth and context without making her a heroine or a sympathetic figure.
The A.V. Club calls the performance a career best. It describes Cathy as a dark soul who leaves wreckage wherever she goes.
Where critics split
The praise is not unanimous. Roger Ebert’s site says the show does not always succeed at subtlety. The Daily Beast calls the series otherwise superlative but complains about persistent dimness. In its view, the photography is the one real failing.
Variety gives much of the story’s moral weight to Hoon Lee. His character voices the central theme of timshel, a Hebrew word Variety translates as “thou mayest.” It stresses individual choice over fate. NPR frames the series the same way, as a retelling that asks again whether fate is predestined.
Variety also flags the gender dynamics of the arrangement between Adam and Lee in the later part of the season. The excerpt available does not say how it judges them.
What else is on Netflix
The Hollywood Reporter says East of Eden arrives alongside a crowded October. The month includes a new season of The Diplomat, a third chapter of Nobody Wants This, Judd Apatow’s looks at Norm Macdonald and Maria Bamford, and a docuseries on Matthew Perry. Ben Affleck’s latest directorial effort is also on the list.
Netflix has not, in the sources reviewed, released viewing figures for the series. Whether audiences take to such a long, dark story as readily as critics have is not yet known.