What is interesting about the series "Confrontation" - the adaptation of the novel by Stephen King

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A large-scale project with a star cast captivates with the quality of filming and relevant topics. There are drawbacks though.

On December 18, on the CBS All Access streaming service (in Russia - on Amediateka), the film adaptation of Stephen King's most voluminous novel, Confrontation, started.

The post-apocalyptic book was already released in 1994 as a four-episode ABC miniseries, and the classic version has many fans. However, the project had several major problems.

Firstly, it was impossible to fit into a small timekeeping a thousand-page work, which King himself wanted to make an analogue of "The Lord of the Rings". Therefore, the plot was shortened, and many of the characters were removed.

Secondly, the modest budgets of television in the nineties did not allow showing the scale of the tragedy described in the literary "Confrontation". And many of the secondary actors played frankly badly - the whole action was based on several performers of the main roles. In addition, television censorship forced to remove some of the violent scenes.

As a result, Stephen King, who himself wrote the script for the 1994 film adaptation, then scolded the resulting project.

After that, for many years they talked about a full-length version or trilogy for large screens. David Yates, Ben Affleck and Scott Cooper were involved in the development, and since 2014 director Josh Boone has been assigned to the film.

After the sale of the rights to film adaptation of CBS Films, the format was changed to serial and it finally came to filming.

In part, such a long ordeal in production was beneficial to the project. Authors of the new version Josh Boone (director of Fault in the Stars and the disastrous New Mutants) and Benjamin Cavell (writer of Homeland and Dastardly Pete) received nine hours of screen time, an impressive budget, support from Stephen King himself, and freedom in violent scenes.

The press was given the opportunity to watch about half of the season. But now we can say that the film adaptation looks exciting and very emotional. Although the unnecessarily confusing presentation and shift of accents sometimes spoil the feeling.

Slow storytelling

A deadly strain of influenza escapes from a military laboratory in the United States, soon to be named Captain Torch. All infected die from it, and less than 1% of the population has immunity.

After a few months, only individual survivors remain on Earth, who gather in groups. Some people have the same dreams: they are summoned by old mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg). Together they organize a commune and try to build a new society.

Others are attracted by the sinister Randal Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard), who has supernatural powers. Having settled in Las Vegas, he plans to take over the world. But for this he needs to destroy the followers of mother Abagail.

It is difficult to describe the plot of "Confrontation" in more detail: in the series, as in the original book, there are only more than a dozen main characters and each has its own story. Plus, in the background there is a story about the beginning of the pandemic and the life of society after the apocalypse.

It is with this that the main difficulty of the film adaptation is connected: the viewer needs to be involved in the story from the very first episodes, but at the same time have time to tell about all the main characters and events. To cope with this task, Boone and Cavell use two techniques. One of them looks very successful, but the second often only gets in the way.

The main characters are not introduced all at once. Each of the opening episodes introduces two or three characters, gradually tying all the stories together. It all starts with the main ones: the good-natured Stu Redman (James Marsden), who caught the very beginning of the spread of the virus, the notorious teenager Harold Lauder (Owen Teague) and Franny Goldsmith (Odessa Young), with whom he is in love.

Then they are joined by musician Larry Underwood (Jovan Adepo) and Nadine Cross (Amber Heard), who is mystically associated with Flagg. And gradually the series collects all the important characters, allowing the viewer to remember each of them and get acquainted with the background without the risk of confusion.

But with the chronology of events, the authors did not act very well. In order to immediately lure the viewer with its globality, the plot of the series is revealed non-linearly. And because of the abundance of flashbacks, the action seems too ragged.

The main events unfold after the pandemic, when most of the people became extinct. But when the authors talk about each hero, everything is postponed several months ago, to the beginning of the infection. And in these flashbacks, memories of earlier events also slip through.

Of course, the authors try to divide the action visually. But such "jumps" are justified only in TV shows like "Darkness" or "Lost", where this is an important part of suspense, capable of changing the attitude towards the heroes at any time. Alas, in "Confrontation" such complexity only hinders the immersion in the action: the characters' characters are quite simple, and insertions from the past only add details.

But, probably, closer to the finale, they will get rid of the abundance of flashbacks and the plot will become more linear and coherent.

The variety of heroes and their relationship

A big plus of such stories is that literally every viewer finds in them the character most close to him. For clarity, you can remember "The Lord of the Rings", which King wanted to imitate. Some readers and viewers loved Frodo, others Aragorn, and still others Gandalf or Legolas.

"Confrontation" in the same way allows you to highlight your pet and worry about his fate, offering all the variety of types and characters. Moreover, unlike the old version, most of them are played by famous actors.

Alas, not all of them were given room for development. The main character, Stu Redman, does not change at all throughout the plot. James Marsden, it seems, will not be able to get out of the too simple image of a "good guy" anytime soon - he is exactly the same as in "Sonic the Movie" and in "Westworld". His character has lost even the sharpness that Gary Sinise had in the 1994 version.

In contrast, Franny's development is shown excellently. Odessa Young, who recently shone in the predecessor of "Euphoria" - the film "Nation of Assassins", once again proves that she works out the development of the characters of her characters very subtly.

And it looks all the more strange that the history of the relationship of these heroes was almost cut out of the plot. Everything happens somehow by itself, and there is absolutely no intimacy between them. But the joint scenes Young and Owen Teague are saturated with "chemistry".

Compared to the original literary source, Teague's character, Harold, has changed a lot, but has become even more interesting. The tortured smile and ostentatious bravado of the timid hero are so unnatural that the actor is at first suspected of a bad acting. Until it becomes clear that this is precisely the problem of the hero, who wants to look cooler than he really is. And Franny's dislike for being forced to be with him is felt, even when she is silent.

These are just a couple of basic examples. There is a story to tell about literally every character, but it is better to give the viewer the opportunity to immerse himself in the story. After all, the series for the most part is just about the problems of relationships in difficult times. And often the characters show not the best, but very believable emotions. Like Harold, partly rejoicing in the general extinction, because only it gives him a chance to get close to the girl of his dreams.

True, at some moments the star cast plays a cruel joke with the series. If the appearance of J. K. Simmons for a couple of minutes seems just a bright spot that allows you to better remember the scene, then Heather Graham seems to require more time and details. But her character Rita Blakemoor only flickers - and disappears without a trace.

The biggest problem, oddly enough, is with the main pillars of the confrontation. They are given too little time, making them more symbols than real heroes. It would seem that Whoopi Goldberg is perfect for the role of Mother Abagail. But they give her a set of clichéd phrases, not allowing her to reveal herself at all.

There is almost no Flagg at all in the first episodes. It is clear that he will be released as the main villain closer to the finale. But even in Big Little Lies, Skarsgård looked more intimidating: a charming handsome man with a completely black soul. In Confrontation, his villainous smile and charm are too deliberate, and therefore do not seem believable.

Scale and special effects

As mentioned at the beginning, the 1994 film adaptation was severely spoiled by a limited budget. The new version of "Confrontation" immediately pleases with its scope. Moreover, the authors clearly did not have an end in itself to make the story too global - the plot often concentrates on personal stories. But for the viewer to feel the full horror of what was happening, it took a lot of investment.

Depicting a terrible disease, the creators do not skimp on unpleasant special effects: bodies swell and decompose literally before our eyes. Enough room for both rats and crows, pecking out the eyes of dead animals. In general, especially impressionable ones are best viewed with caution.

Although it is on physically vile details that they rarely play. More often, authors try to reproduce Stephen King's descriptions and make the viewer feel the mysticism of what is happening. They are working with colors: nightmares and visions of heroes are conveyed in dark colors, and the crumbling world, absorbed by disease, looks much paler than the bright past. Even the pace of the narrative is perfectly supported by either dynamic editing or very long plans.

But the show really thrives in open-space scenes. Almost the entire project was filmed in Vancouver, but the authors managed to show very diverse landscapes, giving the impression of different parts of the United States. And that's not to mention the impressive scenes of deserted streets clogged with abandoned cars.

So for all the plot flaws, the visuals are clearly the strongest side of "Confrontation".

Current scary topic

A year ago, the impressions of "Resistance" would have been completely different. But the series was released in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore it is simply impossible to evaluate it without thinking about the similarity of what is happening on the screen with reality.

This can be considered both one of the main advantages of the new product and its disadvantage. On the one hand, events resonate more strongly. On the other hand, many viewers are already tired of being afraid and will hardly want to see something like this on the screen again.

Although the realism of "Confrontation" is not at all in the story of the pandemic itself. The disease here is absolutely fatal and resembles a movie about the apocalypse, and not what is happening outside the window. But the reaction of many people, especially during the period of the beginning of mass infections, is terribly plausible.

Literally in the very first scenes, workers are shown in masks and protective suits, who carry out the dead from the flu from the church. And it looks like a reflection of situations where real people ignore prohibitions and gather in large enclosed spaces, spreading the virus. And the footage with filled hospitals, where patients lie even in the corridors, as if they were taken straight from the news.

No less indicative is the episode where the musician from the stage thanks the audience for the fact that they were not afraid of a runny nose and came to the concert during the epidemic. Many will surely remember Basta's scandalous performances in St. Petersburg. There is no need to talk about the assurances of the authorities that everything that happens is under control.

And it’s hard not to think about the plot itself, when, wanting to help himself and his loved ones, the military neglected the safety rules, which caused a pandemic. Yes, in the world of Confrontation, something supernatural helped him. But it is not for nothing that in many of King's works the main evil is the people themselves. As in life.

"Confrontation" makes you think about the consequences of mass tragedies. In the series, a pandemic in a matter of months rolls civilization back almost centuries, dividing people into those who want to build a new society, and those who only want to consume at the expense of others.

In life, perhaps, everything is not so clear. But this makes the thought of a rapidly quick and easy collapse of society, as well as the restoration of peace by common forces, no less relevant. But too many will prefer personal gain.

The ending of the series will differ slightly from the original work. But this is not the freedom of adaptation. Stephen King himself wrote the script for the new ending for the ninth episode. Given that the writer is often criticized for the unsuccessful completion of books, it is possible that he is trying to correct the shortcomings of the novel.

In the meantime, the new "Confrontation" looks impressive: an abundance of stars and high-quality special effects side by side with lively and relevant topics. Some shortcomings spoil the perception, but still they can be forgiven, because in general the film adaptation was a success.