I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE
★★
OUT NOW / SKY ATLANTIC EPISODES VIEWED 6 OUT OF 6
DIRECTOR Derek Cianfrance
CAST Mark Ruffalo, Melissa Leo, Rosie O’donnell
PLOT After paranoid schizophrenic Thomas Birdsey (Ruffalo) cuts off his hand in an act of protest against the 1990 Gulf War, he is moved to a high-security asylum. As his brother Dominick (also played by Ruffalo) battles to release him, a dark and painful family saga unfolds.
SOMETIMES YOU JUST have to know when to stop piling on the misery. On paper, Mark Ruffalo’s new mini-series, an adaptation of Wally Lamb’s much-adored 1998 novel, directed and written by Blue Valentine’s master of the downbeat, Derek Cianfrance, should be the perfect slice of high-end television. Ruffalo, who plays Thomas and Dominick Birdsey, the troubled twin brothers at the story’s heart, put on 30lb during a break in filming to play the shambling, befuddled Thomas, but this is not simply a case of Method eating.
Instead, Ruffalo’s finely calibrated performances allow us to see both why Thomas struggles so in the world, and, arguably more impressively, how Dominick, who has borne the burden of being his brother’s keeper for most of his life, has ended up with issues of his own. The rest of the cast, which includes Melissa Leo as the twins’ long-suffering mother and Kathryn Hahn as Dominick’s ex-wife Dessa, is strong too, with Rosie O’donnell a particular stand-out as the initially brusque but ultimately supportive social worker assigned to Thomas’ case.
The problem, however, lies with the source material. Lamb’s potboiler is the sort of story which wants to have power of the Biblical kind, and thus the traumas rained down on the Birdsey twins are equal to the sorrows of Job. From the violent beginning, in which Thomas hacks off his hand in an act of ‘sacrifice’ against the 1990 Gulf War, to the ending, which sees Dominick finding a kind of downbeat redemption, I Know This Much Is True remains the sort of drama where one moment of ill-fortune is never enough.
It’s not enough that Thomas is a paranoid schizophrenic with all the problems that might entail; the boys and their mother must also suffer years of controlling behaviour from stepfather Ray (John Procaccino) before she gets cancer, dying painfully with secrets (such as who the twins’ father is) withheld. It’s not enough that the twins’ grandfather died before they were born, leaving them with a significant gap in their family — there must be hints that he was also abusive, possibly sexually so. It’s not enough that Dominick crashes his truck while worrying about Thomas’ upcoming release hearing — he must also fall from the roof of the house he’s working on the next day, hospitalising himself. This litany of woes is presented faithfully by Cianfrance but lacks the warmth and nuance which save the director’s films from overwhelming you with their pain.
Yet that decision not only deadens our response to the story unfolding, it also nearly tips the show from serious drama towards some sort of terrible black comedy in which the only sane response becomes to wonder what awful act might next befall the Birdsey brothers.
Thank heavens, then, for a typically idiosyncratic Juliette Lewis, who plays a translator engaged by Dominick to work on his grandfather’s unpublished memoir, and whose wildly over-the-top performance at least seems to acknowledge the melodrama at this weird yet watchable show’s core.