VIEWING
My recent screen viewing has run the gamut from social justice to World War II to Hasidic Jews. None of them light pieces, but all a diversion from reading about COVID-19.
Dark Waters (Amazon Prime)
This film, starring Mark Ruffalo as an earnest, determined corporate lawyer who takes on the DuPont Company, has echoes of Jonathan Harr’s book, A Civil Action, about a water contamination case in Massachusetts. That book was excellent, and I imagine the film version was good as well. Although it is well intentioned and a tale where good wins out over corporate greed, Dark Waters is sometimes plodding, and everyone assumes what the outcome will be. I’d give it a B overall.
World on Fire (Masterpiece, PBS Passport)
Following several families, this series initially focuses on the home front in Britain, Poland, and Berlin in 1939-1940 as the Nazis invade Poland, then Belgium and France. The younger generation enlists in the Resistance or joins the armed forces. In Poland, Kasia becomes a killer; Harry, well born and British, in love with two women, is an Army officer; while Lois performs for the troops and brother Tom is a sailor. Helen Hunt as radio reporter Nancy Campbell in Berlin provides yet another perspective as does German business owner Herr Rossler whose daughter is an epileptic. From different social classes, they are all linked by a desire to survive the terrors of war. This series is graphic and not for the faint of heart.
Unorthodox (Netflix)
This short series (just four episodes) traces Esther Shapiro’s escape from life in the restricted Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn to coming alive in Berlin. Married at just 17, she leaves her husband behind and when she arrives in Germany, she has never been to a concert, never used a computer, and never eaten ham. Based on Deborah Feldman’s memoir: Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Routes, the series is a moving and sensitive account of one woman’s personal courage. Highly recommended!
NOVEL PLEASURE
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
This is the latest novel by King, author of Euphoria, which I loved. I liked Writers & Lovers, but didn’t love it in the same way as the earlier work. Perhaps because of the generational divide between me and Casey, a 31-year old aspiring novelist, who definitely doesn’t have her act together. Her life is falling apart with mountains of credit card debt, a so-so job as a waitress in a Harvard Square restaurant, and overwhelming grief over the recent death of her mother. Casey is operating in a world dominated by men, be it the successful writers whose success she envies, her landlord who questions what she might have to say in a novel, and the male chefs and waiters who are sometimes harassing. She is needy and unsettled until two men, one a much older widower with children and the other a laidback academic who is a contemporary, offer solace and the possibility of love. King’s writing is sprightly, and the depictions of Cambridge environs familiar to me. I enjoyed the book more about halfway through when Casey acquires a sense of purpose. And I love the art on the book jacket ! (~JWFarrington)
Note: Header photo is of Helen Hunt in World on Fire (nytimes.com)
