The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
‘Show Me a Hero’ dramatizes N.Y. affordable housing fight
BEVERLYHILLS, CALIF. >> The power of writer David Simon’s work has drawn remarkable actors to TV dramas including “The Wire” and “Treme.”
The latest evidence is “Show Me a Hero,” HBO’s six- episode miniseries based on a bitter 1980s battle over public housing in Yonkers, New York. It begins this weekend and airs 8-10 p.m. on three consecutive Sundays through Aug. 30.
Even Simon marveled at the cast that includes Oscar Isaac, Alfred Molina, Winona Ryder and Catherine Keener. All that talent for what sounds like — but is far from — a dramatized bureaucratic slog?
“It makes no sense. I’m coming with, like, eight hours on botany and seeing who I pull next time,” he jokingly told a meeting of the Television Critics Association.
Stellar director Paul Haggis also was attracted to the miniseries, based on Lisa Belkin’s non-fiction book of the same name that re- counted how a federal court order to build low-income housing in white neighborhoods split the city and wrecked its young mayor’s career.
The result is a study of the clash of what America is and what it hopes to be, as seen through the eyes of lawmakers, activists and the Yonkers residents caught in the maw of politics and social disruption. Simon and William F. Zorzi co-wrote the miniseries.
“It’s a tale of very flawed individuals who are trying to do the right thing from their perspective,” Haggis said, including white homeowners who saw themselves as protectors of their neighborhoods and property values under assault by housing to be placed throughout the city, not solely in poorer areas.