Winslet leads ‘Mare of Easttown’ cast
Kate Winslet (Oscar winner for “The Reader”) returns to HBO in “Mare of Easttown” (10:05 p.m. Sunday, TV-MA). She was last seen there in the limited series adaptation of James M. Cain’s “Mildred Pierce.” That effort was overshadowed by the original classic movie starring Joan Crawford, and pretty much ruined by the curiously exhausting choice to put Winslet in nearly every scene.
If “Mildred” belabored the slam-bang narrative of Cain’s pulp fiction, “Easttown” elevates a TV detective story to the level of intelligent fiction. That despite the fact that it’s not based on any book.
If you’re looking for a sense of place, “Easttown” has more than most can endure. Located not far from Philadelphia, it also has the feel of John Updike’s Pennsylvania country, the kinds of old cities and messy suburbs that have declined since Rabbit Angstrom inherited his Toyota dealership.
Like Updike’s Rabbit, Mare Sheehan’s local fame is based on her high school basketball career. Many locals can’t forget her game-winning shot at the buzzer. A local detective who followed in her dead father’s footsteps, she’s seen attending the 25th anniversary of the big game with her old teammates, including her best friend (Julianne Nicholson, “Boardwalk Empire”) and another teammate, a mother (Enid Graham) whose daughter’s murder has remained unsolved and who has become an angry gadfly against police complacency.
A detective of long standing, Mare is anything but inactive. When another teen girl is found murdered, she’s partnered with a cop (Evan Peters, “American Horror Story”) from the county force, who develops awkward feelings for his prickly partner.
The most routine detective dramas concern police work about 90% of the time, with personal backstory thrown in to offer “depth” to our gumshoes. The ratio in “Mare” is inverted. She’s a local hero as well as a local cop deeply aware of how trapped she has become.
The death of her son has ruined her marriage. But Easttown is the kind of place where your ex moves next door. She’s both deeply resentful and dependent on her caustic mother (the brilliant Jean Smart, “Fargo”).
The fact that her son seemed to hate her right up until his death complicates her relationship with her troubled grandson and makes her despise and distrust her son’s druggy girlfriend. Mare goes to desperate lengths to deny her custody of the child.
And Mare’s daughter, Siobhan (Angourie Rice), could have her own show. She’s a quiet, determined young woman with all of the drama you’d expect from a bright young college student and wannabe musician.
When not solving multiple murders, Mare takes up with a novelist (Guy Pearce, also in “Mildred Pierce”), decades removed from his one good book. Despite his decline, book tours keep him catnip to a certain kind of woman. The fact that Mare isn’t one makes her seem exotic to him.
Winslet brings a brooding stillness to her character. She inhabits the body of an ex-jock who can no longer defy gravity in middle age. Some may fault Winslet’s reliance on the peculiar accent of southeast Pennsylvania, a patois that does funny, even painful, things to the letter “O.”
Some may find “Mare” just too bleak. Hey, “Broadchurch” wasn’t a day at the beach, either. You think Mare and “Mare” are miserable and haunted? Let me introduce you to Kurt Wallander. Ultimately, Mare is a fully realized three-dimensional character, the kind too rare on either the screen or the page.