It
is sort of like a dystopian Jules Verne yarn, wherein the last dregs of
humanity survive the apocalypse in a train perpetually circling the earth,
managed by Wilford Industries. The corporation has saved humanity, but of
course they are the bad guys. That was conspicuously and gratingly so in Bong
Joon-ho’s criminally over-rated film. However, there is a lot more nuance and
dramatically richer characterization in the first fresh-start, blank-slate
season of the TV adaption of Snowpiercer, which premieres this Sunday on
TNT.
Global
warming panic lead scientists to develop a planetary cooling scheme that worked
too well. Now the planet is an ice ball and most life is dead. Fortunately,
Wilford Industries produced Snowpiercer, a train one thousand and one cars long
that must remain in constant motion to beat the freeze. Melanie Cavill is the
public face of the Wilford company. It is her soothing voice that makes the PA
announcements, but she also serves as Mr. Wilford’s direct lieutenant when it comes
to maintaining order.
Andre
Layton is the leader of the opposition. As a “Tailie,” he was not even supposed
to be on Snowpiercer, but he and his fellow proles forced their way into the
tail-section before the train left Chicago. Now they live off scraps and
resentment, which often ignites battles with the “Brakemen,” Snowpiercer’s
axe-wielding cops (guns pose a risk of rupturing the train’s environmental
seals). Layton is definitely a fist-raising revolutionary, but he was also a homicide
detective during his previous life, so Cavill is forced to send for him when a
murder is committed up train. Of course, his investigation will uncover more of
the train’s dirty secrets than Cavill imagined.
The
Snowpiercer series is drastically different from the movie—and each and
every change is for the better. Showrunner Graeme Manson deserves a great deal
of credit for ditching the crude caricatures and in-your-face class warfare didacticism
that made the film so abrasive. This time around, there really are two sides to
the story, order versus equality. That in turn gives rise to real drama.
At
the center of it all is Cavill, who is an endlessly intriguing and ultimately
acutely human character. Thanks to Jennifer Connelly’s extraordinary portrayal,
we come to understand the compromises she made and how each agonizing choice
inevitably leads to another. Honestly, this could be the best genre television
performance of the year.
Daveed
Diggs also covers a lot of emotional terrain, humanizing Layton far beyond a
stick-figure proletarian rebel. He is at his best fencing with either Connelly’s
Cavill or Sheila Vand as Layton’s former fiancé, Zarah Ferami, who betrayed her
class by accepting a new life working in a third-class nightclub. Like Cavill,
Ferami is a complicated character, who must live with the consequences of her
decisions every day.
