The Changeling

[cafenowhere]

Every day that I hop on the elliptical, I’ve been watching “The Changeling,” an Apple+ show based on the novel by Victor LaValle. I haven’t read the book, but I read another LaValle novel, The Devil in Silver, which I absolutely loved. So I was hopeful that this show would at least distract me from my huffing and puffing. (I'll put something slightly spoiler-ish behind a cut.)

Now, watching the show in 15 to 26 minute bursts is not the recommended method, but I’ve been surprised by how invested I’ve been despite the interruptions. Currently I’m on episode 7 of 8. The show is dark, figuratively and literally—sometimes I’m looking at what appears to be a blank screen—and ponderous, in pace and theme. But every time I turn it on, I’m immediately recaptured by this grim fairy tale about postpartum psychosis.

Part of that is the guiding light of the narration, performed by the author simply but sympathetically. I enjoy listening to him. There’s a lot of repetition in the voiceovers, partly because of the back-and-forth timeline, that might annoy me if I were binge-watching (too many shows spoonfeed the audience) but here the repetition works like it does in a fairy tale. It gives events extra weight, and it permits the storyteller to draw the reader on despite an increasingly frightful tale.  

The performances are jaw-dropping. The main character, Apollo, is played by LaKeith Stanfield, who conjures such enormous humanity. He embodies a profound love for life, books, his wife, and baby. Love is strength in this world. The other lead, Emma, is played by Clark Backo, who can convey both a soul-deep calm and a mind pushed past its limit. The eminently graceful Adina Porter does a great job as Apollo’s mother, and Jane Kaczmarek as Cal is surprisingly likable.

 

But I have to say, the performance that has affected me most deeply so far is that of Samuel T. Herring as William Walker, who bids on a rare book Apollo has discovered. Walker is a sad sack that immediately set off my serial killer alarm. There’s just something unsettling about him, even when he’s telling his sad life story. I could barely stand one scene, when Walker examines the book under consideration. It felt like it went on forever, like at any moment the whole situation could go sideways, could erupt into violence. And the only thing really happening was that he was breaking the “rules” of strong, silent masculinity. It was fascinating and indicated how deeply programmed those social conventions are—in me, at least.

 

I’m a little burned out on tv shows. Studios seem intent on stretching what could be movie-length stories out to multi-season series. And then they, often as not, decide the show isn’t profitable enough and axe it mid-plot. I’m looking at you, Shadow and Bone. But in a lackluster movie season, I make do with what I’m given. Which is why I’ve also started Amazon Prime’s “Dead Ringers,” a mini-series based on the movie by David Cronenberg, which in turn is based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland. But that’s for another post.

 

Comments

[gwynnega]

I liked the book of The Changeling a lot. I'm glad to hear the TV version is so good. (I don't have Apple TV, although I ostensibly had a free trial, awhile back. My attempts to watch resulted in an endless loop of validation attempts on every device I own!)

[cafenowhere]

Oh, what a hassle hooking up to the various streaming services can be. Often I miss the days of Netflix envelopes in the mail.

Did you read The Changeling as part of your novel research?

[gwynnega]

I read The Changeling around the time it came out. I'm pretty sure I had attempted to start writing my novel before then (and quickly put it aside), but my conception of the book was so different back then, it wouldn't even have occurred to me that LaValle's novel would be relevant as research for mine!