‘The Alienist’ spotlights frightful underbelly of New York’s gilded age.
Complex characters delve into horrific crimes in ‘The Alienist’
It has taken more than two decades for Caleb Carr’s gruesome and florid best-seller “The Alienist” to be adapted, and if you’ve read the book, you can probably guess why. If you haven’t read the book, you’ll know why within minutes of the belated adaptation premiering on TNT on Monday, Jan. 22. The novel is a masterpiece of neo-grand guignol, detailing a series of murders of boy prostitutes in New York City in 1896. The sleuth isn’t a cop or a deerstalkercapped criminalist, but rather an “alienist,” an archaic term for a forensic psychologist. The name derives from the notion that someone like Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl, “Inglourious Basterds”) is able to determine if a criminal is competent to stand trial, or if he has become “alienated” from sanity. The horrifying discovery of the mostly dismembered body of a boy in a shredded, bloodied dress prompts Kreizler to dispatch artist John Moore (Luke Evans, “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women”) to make a detailed sketch of the boy’s body. The game, as might be said by another literary crime solver, is afoot. As more murders pile up, Kreizler assembles an elite team to
investigate the killings, including Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning, “The Twilight Saga”) and fraternal twins Marcus and Lucius Isaacson (Douglas Smith, “Big Love,” and Matthew Shear, “The Meyerowitz Stories),” respectively. Sara is the no-nonsense secretary to the city’s newly appointed police commissioner, future president Teddy Roosevelt (Brian Geraghty, “The Hurt Locker”), who has pledged not only to curtail crime, but also to put an end to corruption in the police department.
The first two episodes sent to critics don’t even begin to suggest possible killers, or to even scratch the surface of possible motives. Whatever is prompting these horrific murders probably goes beyond the killer merely having a bad day. In addition to partial dismemberment, eyes are removed from the victims’ skulls and the genitals are relocated elsewhere in the body.
I won’t go into details, not because of a potential spoiler, but more in keeping with the care and vision of creator Cary Fukunaga (“Beasts of No Nation”). Fukunaga understands that the suggestion of horror can be even more effective than a hyper-naturalistic display of mutilated body parts and innards.
From the outset, there is a pervasive sense of danger and ever-lurking terror in “The Alienist.” Much of it owes to a strong sense of naturalism, though, from the setting and character details. The streets of New York are dark, overcrowded, raucous, and ripe with crime and danger, in “The Alienist.” In fact, the New York of 1896 is not unlike the New York of the early 1970’s in HBO’s “The Deuce.” Vice is widespread and everyone’s got an angle, and not a few secrets as well.
The performances are winning on almost every level, especially that of Fanning, playing the first female employee of the New York Police Department who shows more drive and deductive skills than many of the male cops she works with.
But as with Kreizler and Moore, there is a lot about Sara we don’t yet know. Each major character interests us from the moment he or she appears. We do learn things about them, but the more we learn, the more we suspect there is much more hidden beneath the surface.
“The Alienist” is a gripping, multilayered detective story, prompting us of course to want to know who is killing the boys and for what perverse reason, but also wanting to know the men and the woman who are trying to find those answers as well.
There is a pervasive sense of danger and ever-lurking terror in “The Alienist.” Much of it owes to a strong sense of naturalism, though, from the setting and character details.