Dickinson review – Emily Dickinson reborn as a Lizzo-loving feminist
Emily Dickinson doesn’t seem like the historical figure most ripe for a feminist revision. The American poet, whose work was published almost entirely after her death, lived a pious life in a stable, publicly invested New England family, wrote mostly in private, and was a recluse for most of her adult life. Dickinson, one of four shows in the freshman class of originals for the Apple TV+ streaming service, launching 1 November, assumedly saw promise in the name brand of one of America’s most famous 19th-century female poets. It mines her life for the strict, defining details – child of a town-figure father (Toby Huss) and cold homemaker mother (an extremely miscast Jane Krakowski) in Amherst, Massachusetts; two siblings'; comfortable home – while shoehorning in the more inconveniently introspective, cerebral, of-her-time personality of the unheralded (in her lifetime) literary trailblazer.
In the Apple version, created by Alena Smith, a young adult Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld, also an executive producer) navigates the stifling expectations of antebellum New England with all the subtlety of a #FEMINISM workout tank, strumming air guitar to Lizzo and cross-dressing to attend a no-women-allowed college lecture because, as she says, “Maybe they’re so scared that if they teach us how the world works we’ll figure out a way how to take over.” She explicitly declares her intention to become a famous writer, bums cigarettes off of potential suitors (unclear if this was possible in the 1850s), and spends nights with her best friend/lover/brother’s fiancee Sue Gilbert (Ella Hunt). She defiantly refuses to do chores, leverages a suitor’s attraction into a deal to publish her poems, and prizes night-time inspiration for her work. When her sister, Lavinia (Anna Baryshnikov), interrupts her early morning poetry writing to remind her to fetch water – their brother can’t do it “because he’s a boy” – Emily guffaws and remarks: “This is such bullshit.”
In other words, there’s little trace of the wondrous and luminously sad Dickinson many teens encounter in high school curriculums in this show that seems to be going for coming-ofage comedy but lands somewhere be
tween skit and revisionist biography. Not that there’s anything wrong with straying far from period accuracy – the success, warmth, and absurd goofiness of Drunk History, which imparts far more emotional truth from history than its stunt premise would initially suggest, says otherwise. But Apple’s take on this zaniness feels half-baked; the set-up has the feel of a high-school project with unlimited wells of money and ambition, layering thin paeans of slogan feminism (versions of “well-behaved women seldom make history”, many times over) and modern diction over the broad contours of a historical figure’s life.
There’s a different show, or maybe comedy sketch, where Wiz Khalifa playing the incarnation of Death imparts more than stunt casting, where the feminism is more than just acknowledging the frustrating limitations of Dickinson’s position as a female poet, where the subversiveness isn’t merely putting a modern teen movie on a period subject, where the lines aren’t literally, as Dickinson says at one point: “Boys are stupid.” Dickinson may become that show after the initial three episodes available for review, not least due to the performance of Steinfeld, who still manages to shine despite the show’s often clunky dialogue and tonal inconsistencies, which range from send-up to spoof to serious reconsideration of a misunderstood woman. Dickinson may still have no idea what to do with Wiz Khalifa’s Death other than as a proof of concept of its winking ambition, but it’s still compelling to watch Steinfeld, decked out in a red ballgown, take a carriage ride from hell or manipulate a hapless suitor (the same enjoyment cannot be said for the show’s onerous voiceover and corny transcription of the real Dickinson’s lines to screen).
To its credit, Dickinson steadies itself a bit by the third episode, and it has the parts for a fun, perhaps insightful, series – namely Steinfeld and the rich potential for the absurd comedy of modern manners and personalities in period setting. But watching the three episodes available for review, it’s hard not to wonder what is gained in this story, and who it’s for. (As with its other shows, Apple will release the first three episodes of Dickinson together, then once a week until the season’s end. Dickinson has already been renewed for a second season, suggesting there’s a greater trajectory of growth beyond the first three episodes.) Certainly there’s something enjoyable, particularly for a teenage audience, in watching a young woman take stock of her world’s bullshit and persevere anyway. But those viewers probably don’t need to be told that boys are stupid; they, like the real Dickinson, will keep looking for something deeper.
Dickinson begins on Apple TV+ on 1 November