By Sara Smith
The Leftovers is the end of the world as we know it. Nobody feels fine. HBO almost hits it out of the park again with its latest drama, based on a literary science fiction novel from Tom Perrotta. The Leftovers has an inherently depressing premise that fascinates in its first few hours. But the scattershot pacing and unhelpful flashbacks might make it vanish from your DVR queue.
“We’re still here,” says Kevin Garvey, police chief of Mapleton, New York, the centre of the show’s action. He repeats it to his kids, his friends at the bar, the local preacher, as if trying to convince himself, too: “We’re still here.”
Two of Perrotta’s other books, Election and Little Children, have been made into movies, but The Leftovers feels nothing like those biting suburban stories of angst. It’s the story of the aftermath of a worldwide disaster, but there are no zombies, no abandoned cities, no aliens. There is fallout, but not of the nuclear kind.
The Leftovers begins its tale three years after the events of October 14, 2011, when millions of people vanished without warning. Now people call that day simply “the Fourteenth,” “the Sudden Departure” or simply “what happened,” even though no one knows exactly what that was, including the panel of scientists Congress appointed. The experts sum up their investigation by saying, “We don’t know.”
The Fourteenth selected its victims equally from all countries, races and religions. Pilots were whisked from cockpits at the same moment child rapists vanished from prison cells. When all the missing were counted, 2% of the Earth’s population was gone.
Celebrities vanished, too: No more Justin Bieber or Jennifer Lopez. People wondered, “The Pope, I get. But Gary Busey?”
Some Christians, in particular, raged at the randomness of it all. One of every 50 people had blinked out of their Earthly existence — but those who remained didn’t make the cut. This was not the Rapture they’d been sold. Many of them decided it wasn’t the Rapture at all.
Whatever it was, it touched nearly everyone, even those whose families are still intact. Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) didn’t lose his wife, daughter or son on the Fourteenth. But he’s losing them now: His teenage daughter is withdrawn and defiant. His son dropped out of college to work for a guy who calls himself, with a straight face, Holy Wayne.
Garvey’s wife, Laurie (Amy Brenneman), has gone even further afield and joined the Guilty Remnant.
Perhaps the most obnoxious of all the cult movements to crop up since the Fourteenth, the Guilty Remnant’s members don’t want the world to move on. They take a strict vow of silence, move away from their families and wear only white. They must smoke cigarettes if they’re in public.
When they do appear in public, they stalk potential recruits in silence, appearing in parking lots, outside restaurants or on the sidewalk across the street. Smoking, silent and waiting. One of their mottoes is, “It Won’t Be Long Now.”
The Guilty Remnant’s growing numbers are part of the reason the Feds made the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the BATFEC — the C is for cults. Lots of survivors dropped out of “normal” society, which now includes America fighting one bloody war in Yemen and losing another with the stock market. You can see why yard work, soccer carpools and tuition at Harvard are a hard sell.
Mapleton’s Episcopal priest, Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston), preaches to nearly empty pews, and he can’t get through a sermon without getting punched in the face. He’s a leader in the Rapture Denial movement, which comforts its adherents by digging up dirt on the departed. Jamison blankets Mapleton with fliers that look like wanted posters: SHE SOLD DRUGS. HE GAMBLED AWAY HIS CHILDREN’S MONEY. It makes him unpopular, to say the least.
But the Rev Jamison, portrayed with explosive desperation by Eccleston (Doctor Who), is trying to suffocate his private tragedy with his cruelty. He’s clinging to the concept of himself as a righteous man, which is what gets Chief Garvey through the lonely nights, too.
It’s really what everyone is trying to do, at least on the surface, except for the cult leaders. Ann Dowd, who creeped out True Detective fans earlier this year, is unsettling as the conniving local Guilty Remnant leader, and Holy Wayne (Paterson Joseph) is a scary, manipulative sexual predator. The show might let us see his satisfying downfall — eventually, after we spend lots of time with partying teens, anguished widows and nihilistic hippies.
It’s not that The Leftovers isn’t great storytelling, because it is. It’s just befuddling, violent and sad — more and more all the time, with no satisfaction in sight. Theroux is flat-out fantastic and Emmy-worthy in this role, but as he struggles to hold the centre in a town of walking wounded, you might be the one who gives up. — The Kansas City Star/MCT
Actor Kevin honoured
Actor Kevin Kline was presented with the Career Achievement Award at the 50th anniversary gala of the Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF).
With this award, Kline joins the rank of the most influential talents through the decades at CIFF. These include directors Orson Welles, George Cukor, Oliver Stone and Steven Spielberg, and actors Michael Douglas, Tom Cruise, Sally Fields, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino, Xinhua reported.
Earlier, Kline won an Academy award in the year 1988 for best suporting actor in the film, ‘A Fish Called Wanda’. “Kevin Kline is one of the most versatile performers of his generation and truly deserving Chicago International Film Festival’s Career Achievement Award,” festival founder Michael Kutza said. This year marks CIFF’s 50th anniversary, one of the longest running film festivals in the US. — IANS
Amy Adams gives first class seat to soldier
Actress Amy Adams reportedly gave her first class seat on a flight to a US soldier and travelled back in the economy cabin of her Delta flight from Detroit. The 39-year-old, who was born on a military base as her father was in the army, was reportedly travelling from Detroit to Los Angeles on a busy Delta flight when she spotted a soldier in uniform and generously asked a flight attendant to swap their seats, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
Eyewitness Jemele Hill, who co-hosts ESPN’s Numbers Never Lie, told NBC’s Today show via e-mail from the plane: “When we were waiting to board, I saw her glance the soldier’s way and then she said something to the person she was travelling with. Once we boarded, I saw she was in first class. I was upgraded to first class and she was a couple rows behind me.
“I think she must have said something to the flight attendant, because before we took off she had vacated her seat and the flight attendant brought the soldier to her seat.” She added: “I just thought it was incredibly classy and thoughtful.” — IANS