Links: Alias Grace

From Ben Lawrence of the Telegraph:

Link: Netflix’s Alias Grace is every bit the equal of The Handmaid’s Tale – review
And yet director Sarah Polley has managed to grasp Atwood’s challenging prose and create something that feels both obsessively faithful and cinematically ambitious. This production (now available in its entirety on Netflix) is literate film-making of the highest order. Continue reading.

From Julia Raeside of The Guardian:

Link: Alias Grace review – another poignant adaptation of a Margaret Atwood novel
Those craving another story of female oppression from Atwood’s estimable pen will do well to watch this six-part period drama. Writer and producer Sarah Polley has wanted to adapt Alias Grace since she was 17 and has clearly poured herself into the project. Atwood herself also acts as consulting producer. Continue reading. 

From Melanie McFarland of Salon:

Link: A different maid’s tale: The beautiful deceit of “Alias Grace”
Sarah Polley, produces and wrote the script for “Alias Grace” and she steeps the plot in such layers of mystery, prodding at our assumptions about its main subject and the place of women in that era. She and Harron also toy with popular expectations of how women are portrayed and comport themselves in period dramas. Initially, the story takes on a gentle tone, but soon flashes of violent assaults Grace sustains in the asylum hint at a darker truth. Continue reading.

From Kelly Connolly of Entertainment Weekly:

Link: Alias Grace is a true crime drama with the spirit of The Handmaid’s Tale 
As a lead, Gadon is electrifying, her quilting needle always one stab away from drawing blood. The show makes little attempt to age her across the decades, which does underplay the physical toll her traumatic experiences likely would have taken on her, but Alias Grace is better for being left in her hands. Gadon makes Grace magnetically interesting without losing sight of her unreliability as a narrator, the defining framework of Atwood’s novel. Continue reading. 

From Danielle Turchiano of Variety:

Link: Sarah Gadon Calls ‘Alias Grace’ the ‘Most Complicated, Intelligent’ Job She’s Ever Had
“As a character study, she’s fascinating. The way that Margaret writes her is very multi-dimensional. She doesn’t really commit to one narrative of the murder, and the show is trying to unwind her story. When I read the book I oscillated between all of these different ideas of who Grace was and what she was capable of doing, but I didn’t feel resolved in any of those.” Continue reading.

Link: ‘Alias Grace’ Team on the ‘Beautiful Mindf—’ of the Unconventional Female Protagonist
“What’s so delicious about Grace is she’s kind of like [raises her middle fingers] to the whole notion because maybe she did it and maybe she didn’t. She got punished but also she got set free. It’s a beautiful sort of mindf— as far as the conventions of female protagonists.” Continue reading. 

From Chelsea Tatham of Tampa Bay.com:

Link: Review: ‘Alias Grace’ a spellbinding tale of true crime and quiltmaking
Alias Grace is a remarkably complex portrait of a young servant girl who eventually becomes a “celebrated murderess.” The series quickly becomes more of an attempt to understand Grace beyond her titles of maid and murderess. Continue reading. 

From Nathan Now of KSDK:

Link: Review: Netflix’s Alias Grace is a harrowing and masterful journey
The series is superbly acted throughout, but no one outshines the stunning Gadon. Her Grace remains coy in the present and is emotionally laid bare in the past. The actress deftly seesaws between the young, naïve girl shown in flashbacks to the older, wizened prisoner accustomed to abuse and deception. Continue reading. 

From Stephen Parthimos of The Iris:

Link: Murder Mystery Alias Grace is a gripping character study
Sarah Gadon’s performance is phenomenal from start to finish. She commands the screen in every scene, delivers dialogue with much conviction, conveys drastic emotional highs and lows incredibly well, and right down to the subtleties of her character never once breaks formula. Continue reading.

From Phoebe Reilly of Rolling Stone:

Link: ‘Alias Grace’: How a True-Crime Drama Became the Most Relevant Show on TV
“My main objective was to track a woman’s journey through a man’s world where she’s endlessly harassed, abused – and expected to remain silent.” Continue reading.

From Katherine Cusumano of W Magazine:

Link: Alias Grace Star Sarah Gadon on Why Grace Marks’s Story Matters So Much Right Now
“The whole notion of exploring this woman who’s very repressed and everything that’s going on in her life has this kind of resonance because people aren’t thinking about their own repression or their own experiences with abuse and harassment privately—we’re thinking about women with this massive collective consciousness right now. It’s amplified the meaning of the show and I think it really is starting to strike a chord with people that goes beyond Grace’s story. It connects to their own story.” Continue reading.

From Adrian Hennigan of Haaretz.com:

Link: Netflix’s ‘Alias Grace’ Paints an Authentic World of Masters and Servants
I state with confidence that I will be breaking new journalistic ground with my next sentence: I have just watched two very good Canadian TV shows. I’ll start with the most prestigious: the six-part adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1996 novel “Alias Grace” (now available on Netflix). Continue reading.