To protect or serve: Sheriff faces difficult choice in ‘American Rust’
As the television universe expands with access to seemingly endless streaming series, one-off specials and feature films, a few programs stand out as ones to watch, with brilliant casts and riveting source material. One such series examines the decline of small-town America against the backdrop of a murder investigation.
Two-time Emmy winner Jeff Daniels (“The Newsroom”) returns to prime-time television as Del Harris, the police chief of a struggling steel town in southwest Pennsylvania, in “American Rust,” premiering Sunday, Sept. 12, on Showtime. Emmy nominee Maura Tierney (“The Affair”) co-stars as Grace Poe, the woman trying to convince her coworkers at a dress factory to join a union. In love with Poe, Harris faces a difficult choice when her son, Billy (Alex Neustaedter, “Colony”), is accused of murder.
The nine-episode series is based on the novel of the same name by acclaimed writer Philipp Meyer, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for
First Fiction. This is not the first TV adaptation of one of Meyer’s books; in 2017, his novel “The Son” was adapted for the small screen as a western drama starring Pierce Brosnan (“GoldenEye,” 1995) for AMC.
Billed as a “compelling family drama” in an official Showtime release, the project has actually been in the works since 2017, when it was announced that
USA Network had given it a straight-to-series order. Unfortunately, plans for the show fell through at that time because producers couldn’t find the right leading man. In 2019, however, the project was revived for Showtime with Daniels as both the star and an executive producer.
The project reunites Daniels with Oscar nominee Dan Futterman
(“Capote,” 2005), who has signed on as an executive producer, writer and showrunner. The pair previously worked together on the 2018 Hulu miniseries “The Looming Tower,” which earned four Emmy nominations. Showtime Networks President of Entertainment Gary Levine had high praise for the duo in an official release announcing the details of the production.