Poor little rich boy
Patrick Melrose is the Cumberbatch-iest show ever made — and that’s a good thing
Patrick Melrose Debuts Saturday, CraveTV
Patrick Melrose, an impressive Showtime adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical novels, is about a lonely rich boy who is raped by his narcissistic father and ignored by his aloof mother. In adulthood, Patrick becomes a heroin addict, clinging to recovery on the fringes of British high society.
The rich are different from you and #MeToo, which can sometimes obstruct the empathy they’re entitled to as human beings. It is to Patrick Melrose’s credit that a viewer winds up feeling sorry for the title character, despite his volatile binges.
The five-part series stars Benedict Cumberbatch, the star of PBS’s Sherlock who rocketed to the big time with Marvel’s superhero movies and an Oscar-nominated performance in 2014’s The Imitation Game.
Suffice to say that Patrick Melrose is the Cumber batchiest thing the world has yet seen, which many will see as wonderful news. As a star vehicle, it affords the actor the opportunity to summon all his acting skills into a manic mural of euphoria, misery and whatever other emotions he cares to display.
Part 1 can be both captivating and off-putting, depending on how much a viewer enjoys watching a drug user hit rock bottom in a fancy hotel suite.
It’s 1982 and Patrick (Cumberbatch) learns his father, David (Hugo Weaving), has died in New York. Patrick travels from London to retrieve his father’s ashes, and he unwisely chooses the trip as an opportunity to quit heroin cold turkey. Most of the hour is therefore spent chronicling Patrick’s descent into a hell, pumping himself full of booze, downers and uppers until giving in to the needle and spoon.
As Patrick returns to London in the agony of withdrawal, Part 2 takes a much-needed flashback to 1967, when David sexually assaults young Patrick (Sebastian Maltz) at the family’s lavish summer place in the south of France, telling the boy that at the very least he is conferring the lifelong gift of detachment.
The events that transpire are necessarily abhorrent — unambiguously effective in their depiction. The household dysfunction and alcohol abuse are plain to see, yet only one of the Melroses’ several house guests picks up on Patrick’s suffering. His mother, Eleanor (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is herself a study of detachment, either oblivious to her son’s pain or choosing not to see it.
Now that we know why Patrick is the way he is, Part 3 flashes forward to a 1990 dinner party and gala, where the guest of honour is a snooty Princess Margaret (Harriet Walter) and Patrick barely clings to sobriety as he encounters familiar faces from his parents’ past.
It’s almost impossible to watch this show outside of the current context about sexual abuse and authority. Although the backdrop is one of vivid wealth and socially sanctioned hedonism, Patrick’s suffering is the same as anyone’s.
Showtime did not provide the final two parts of Patrick Melrose for this review, so it’s hard to tell if it continues to be as strong as its start. Still, Cumberbatch’s all-in performance is a worthy reason to see it through.