Image source, Eleven Film
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- Author, Hugh Montgomery
- Author’s title, BBC Culture*
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Reading time: 5 min
The creator of Adolescence (“Adolescence”), Jack Thorne, adapted Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s classic novel, for his latest television series about young assassins.
Thorne has long been a prolific and acclaimed playwright and screenwriter. His credits include the great theatrical success Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (““Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”).
However, it was the Netflix phenomenon of last year Adolescence -along with Stephen Graham-, the one who catapulted him to a new dimension: his story about a 13-year-old murderer swept the Emmys and sparked a global debate.
So you could say that Thorne’s decision to adapt Lord of the Flies was a good strategy to build a brand and, at the same time, tempt fate given the superficial narrative similarities: another story of boys with horrible behaviors.
But in reality, Golding’s story about a school group that gradually descends into violent anarchy and murder after their plane crashes on a desert island is something very different: much more an allegory about the problems of society than those of male youth.
A different proposal
Image source, Getty Images
What Thorne achieves so masterfully in this bold and chilling four-part work is that the narrative works on two levels: naturalistic, like a thriller tense and immersive, and philosophically, as a dark investigation into the evils of collective human behavior.
Their version of the story, which premiered internationally at the Berlin Film Festival, retains the book’s period setting, with the boys speaking in an archaic, aristocratic British language that includes “long vacs,” “togs” (clothes), and “gnasher paste” (toothpaste).
But otherwise, as is often the case with versions of widely studied classics, this one is surprisingly fresh and different.
Structurally, Thorne’s key innovation lies in presenting each episode from a different point of view, lending an intimacy to the characterization that is complemented by Marc Munden’s striking direction.
From the unnerving fisheye camera to the Terrence Malick-style cuts to nature in action (swarming ants, scurrying beetles), Munden truly envelops the viewer in island life.
Meanwhile, the oversaturated color palette (flaming reds and oranges, frighteningly garish greens) gives the whole thing the hallucinogenic quality of a nightmare, something reinforced by the composer’s booming, discordant soundtrack. The White LotusCristóbal Tapia de Veer.
Ideal casting
Image source, Getty Images
The casting department gets all the praise too.
It’s certainly a blessing that the series begins with an hour focused on an actor as charismatic as David McKenna, who plays the doomed Piggy. His character represents the voice of reason of the group that tries to establish order, but is ignored and ridiculed for his weight and his glasses, among other things.
Far from making him a tragic victim, the 12-year-old Northern Irish actor (surprisingly making his professional debut) infuses him with such charm and poise that it is even more unfair that others ignore him so categorically.
It’s almost a shame that, in the second episode, the protagonist’s mantle passes to his nemesis, the populist and arrogant Jack, who forms a dissident faction and is the real instigator of the chaos, although Lox Pratt also works excellently in that role, capturing the vulnerability beneath the character’s mocking bravado.
Another interesting detail is that Thorne gives Jack and the other main characters a little more backstory about their childhood before the island, including through flashbacks. This extra detail is nice, although I’m not sure it was strictly necessary, because the true and disturbing power of Lord of the Flies is that these characters, and their dynamics, are so archetypal.
This is confirmed by Ralph, the group’s elected boss, a fundamentally decent leader, but whose flaws are evident from the start in the way he joins in on Piggy’s taunts to ingratiate himself.
It may focus on children, but of course it is far from a children’s story; Yet at the same time, it’s a series made for the most enriching type of family viewing, from which every generation can learn something.
This is adapted from a review originally published by BBC Culture. If you want to read it in the original English, do click here.
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