Cast: Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist, Hoon Lee, Tracy Letts, Martha Plimpton, Ciarán Hinds, Joseph Zada, Joe Anders
Creator: Zoe Kazan
Star rating: ★★★★
Cathy Ames is described as a monster by John Steinbeck in East of Eden, a woman who is fundamentally and inherently devoid of a conscience and moral compass. To get what she wants, she will shoot and poison and manipulate anyone, even her parents. She will burn down the forces that try to stop her. Steinbeck does not delve into her evil as much as show it, making her the embodiment of evil in the biblical allegory of his novel. ‘The trouble is that since we cannot know what she wanted, we will never know whether or not she got it,’ reads a line from the book.
Mike Faist, Christopher Abbott and Florence Pugh in East of Eden.
A modern adaptation
The new adaptation on Netflix, created by Zoe Kazan, maps the vast canvas of the multigenerational novel in seven hour-long episodes. It is a rather mighty task, all the more personal for Kazan, whose paternal grandfather Elia Kazan had also adapted the book into a film with James Dean in his first major role. Thankfully, Kazan remains majorly faithful to the text to provide a rich and absorbing retelling for a new generation. It dares to investigate Cathy, providing a complex, unflinching and feminist backstory to her that the book never imagined. The show lends Cathy space to exist beyond her misdeeds and cruelty, with the face and daring of Florence Pugh front and centre.
East of Eden begins with Pugh's Cathy arriving at the porch, bleeding and beaten to death (we will come back to the reason why in the unforgettable second episode). This house belongs to two brothers. Adam Trask (Christopher Abbott) takes her in, but his brother Charles (Mike Faist, so good in his defiance and limited capacity), is skeptical of her presence. In a matter of few days, Adam will marry Cathy and leave for the Salinas Valley, leaving Charles to himself. She gets pregnant and withdraws to herself- inhabiting the new place like a living ghost. Cathy is not ready to be a farm wife, or tied down by motherhood. She rejects her twin sons, refuses to see them and tells Adam to throw them into a well. She leaves, and begins her life anew as Kate, deceitfully taking refuge in the local brothel.
Movie Review
East of Eden
4/5
In the early 1900s, a fiercely independent woman drives a rift between two brothers, igniting a saga that unfolds across two generations.
Cast
Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, and Mike Faist
Verdict
Deeply compassionate to its characters and largely faithful to the John Steinbeck classic, East of Eden is a sprawling epic with a beating heart.
Make no mistake, Cathy is a villain. In the book and far more so in Steinbeck's inscrutable words. I was unable to see this character beyond her darkness when I read the book. Kazan handles her with so much more nuance and complexity, careful not to take away her villainy but also to ground her as a woman and as a survivor. I am certain that only a woman could have written her this way; seen and believed her for all that Cathy is, so unapologetically. She is not an enigma, she is a woman who chose to survive and fight for her agency. The extraordinary strength in this adaptation lies in this investigation of Cathy as a woman first, a villain next. At every chance she is robbed of her agency and every chance she fights back.
A career-best turn from Florence Pugh
Florence Pugh delivers a razor-sharp, astonishing turn- so committed to the mercurial ways in which Cathy calculates how she will go next. A sight to behold in Kirsty Cameron’s excellent costume design, the actor's face is a landscape of icy-cold stares- informing Cathy's vigilance and desperation that cut through a largely misogynistic society controlled by lustful men. The one extended sequence with Martha Plimpton's Faye where her Cathy explodes in drunken stupor, Pugh makes a flash of anger so intense it could shatter glass.
East of Eden is a multigenerational story that boils down to the struggle between good and evil, in the importance of the exercise of free will. To choose, then, becomes the greatest act of power. Steinbeck asserts this philosophical pivot with the Hebrew word timshel, translated as "thou mayest". The series faithfully adapts this beautiful advice through the character of Lee, the caretaker for Adam Trask and his sons. Kazan, teaming up directors Garth Davis and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, knows that Lee is easily the most vital character of the book and therefore, expands his journey some more. The Chinese-American actor Hoon Lee steps into this part and delivers a wonderfully humane performance that registers the full capacity of Lee's immigrant experience. His scenes with Abbott are exquisitely staged and performed.
Final thoughts
Deeply compassionate to its characters and largely faithful to the Steinbeck classic, East of Eden is a sprawling epic with a beating heart. Kazan imagines Steinbeck's visual grammar in the vast landscapes containing infinite possibilities of the American Dream contrasted with the intimate chambers of a house where generations repeat the same mistakes. She then chooses to expand it. Through the perspective of Cathy and Lee, caught in the vortex of legacy of one family’s fortunes and follies. It is a worthy adaptation for a new generation that revitalizes the classic, and easily one of the best shows of the year.
Santanu Das is a Senior Content Producer at Hindustan Times with over 5 years of experience, writing on films, pop culture and film festivals. He has a keen interest in writing about South Asian independent films and has covered several film festivals, including Sundance and CPH: Docx. He also brings a sharp perspective to the monthly column called The Fault in Our Stars, where he writes about a recent film/series and what stops the ‘good’ from becoming ‘great’.
A gold medalist from Banaras Hindu University, Santanu completed his postgraduate studies in English from Jadavpur University. He is also a Rotten Tomatoes-certified film critic. When not watching films or speaking to celebrities, Santanu can be found reading a book. Some of his favourite films are Aparajito, Ponyo and The Double Life of Veronique. His favourite books include The Corrections, The God of Small Things and A Room of One's Own.
Santanu continues to write passionately about films and celebrity culture. He brings a relatable, as well as critically informed, lens to entertainment and culture for a wide audience.
Find him on LinkedIn: santanudasfilm
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