Dear Edward Review Episode 1-3: A Apple TV+ Masterpiece of Emotional Storytelling
Cast: Colin O’Brien, Connie Britton, Taylor Schilling, Amy Forsyth, Carter Hudson, Idris DeBrand, Ivan Shaw, Jenna Qureshi, Maxwell Jenkins, Dario Ladani Sanchez
Creator: Jason Katims
Streaming Platform: Apple Tv+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Dear Edward, Jason Katims’ latest serial creature, this time for Apple TV+, is available from February 3rd with a weekly appointment. In some ways, an ideal heir to This Is Us, a “pure” drama that tells the mourning process of a group of people through the eyes of the child protagonist of the title. A group that becomes a family in its way while each nucleus in turn tries to deal with the loss in a personal way, demonstrating and reminding us of what makes us human: the bonds between people, the deepest connection that exists and that allows us to survive.
Behind the project are the craft and experienced pen of an author like Jason Katims (creator, among others, of successful shows such as Friday Night Lights and Parenthood). Ten episodes in which an ensemble cast of well-known faces from television series revolves around the incredible (true) story of the sole survivor of a plane crash, a boy of just twelve. The first three episodes, which we tell you about in our review of Dear Edward, are available from February 3, and then move on to the usual weekly release of the remaining seven.
Dear Edward Review: A Story of Survival and Hope
Edward, a 12-year-old boy, is the only survivor of a plane crash. His life and those of the relatives of the victims intertwine in a path that will lead them to process the tragedy of the loss and to establish new and unexpected relationships between them. It seems that the writer Ann Napolitano was (understandably) so impressed by the news of a plane crash in which the only survivor was a boy of just twelve, that she decided to write a book about it. The television adaptation of the book recounts the tragedy experienced by Edward, a highly gifted child with social anxiety problems, traveling with his parents and older brother on a flight to Los Angeles, where the family was about to move to follow the professional career of her mother, a successful screenwriter.
On the same plane, the lives of the future victims of the crash intersect for a moment: a young mother headed to LA to audition, the boyfriend of a 16-week pregnant girl, a long-time senator, an entrepreneur and the father of the family. Tragedies, when they happen, never fall into a pneumatic vacuum, but overwhelm lives already full of pain, misunderstandings, old wounds and daily difficulties. And so, those who stay, find themselves forced to undertake a path of mourning integration that redefines the horizons of meaning and recombines the pieces of their identity following unpredictable trajectories. This is what happens to Adriana, the young niece and assistant to the senator, to Lacey (Taylor Schilling), Edward’s aunt and just back from the second abortion, and Lydia, a pregnant girl.
After the loss of her boyfriend Gary finds herself alone and without family support, too little Becks, whose uncle will try to bring her back to Ghana. And finally, to DeeDee (a tragicomic Connie Britton) and Zoe. The lives of this diverse parterre of characters intersect a short distance from the accident thanks to the support group for the relatives of the victims of the plane crash; a room where everyone brings himself and the ghosts of the past and present. Proximity, therefore, paves the way for unexpected dynamics between characters whose paths would probably never have intersected.
Dear Edward Review and Analysis
The emotional and dramatic material, distributed among a considerable number of characters, which is offered to us from the very first episodes is decidedly dense. The choral structure of the series imposes a strong fragmentation of the storylines, combined with a recurring use of flashbacks. The sensation is that for each chamber of pain, we investigate, a subsequent one follows, without a solution of continuity, and without giving the viewer time to breathe. The general atmosphere, however, despite the insistence on the “human drama” factor, is tempered by an underground sense of stubborn hope that emerges immediately through the first interactions between the protagonists. The craft of screenwriters can be seen in the ease with which they manage to build an emotional show by leveraging the sensitivity of the viewer (the musical sector is decisive,
In addition to this, it is undeniable that the show indulges in several plot twists, while also inserting several rather predictable mystery hooks. What in terms of writing (and performance) another deeply emotional show like This is Us had managed to do, here loses its balance when it shows its haste to inundate us with drama after drama, without giving the viewer the time to elaborate on the information and experiences of a plurality of characters who seek (and herein lies the paradox) to elaborate themselves the tragedy by which they have been struck. We find two well-known faces among fans of television series: Taylor Schilling (unforgettable protagonist of Orange is The New Black) and Connie Britton (formerly interpreter of Friday Night Lights and more recently of The White Lotus, via Ryan Murphy’s anthological series).
If the former is entrusted with a more conventionally dramatic genre role (in which she is nonetheless convincing), the latter is required to move on a tragicomic and over-the-top line in which the actress is perfectly at ease, giving life to a character who does not end in its most caricatured side. The very young Colin O’Brien, interpreter of Edward (and whom we will soon find again in the role of a young Willy Wonka in Wonka), manages to contain the sadness and incredulity of his tragedy in a touching and calibrated interpretation, helped in this by a particularly attentive writing towards him. We will therefore see if the fluctuating premises of such a rich series (for better or for worse), will be able to take flight with the help of a cast that certainly plays in its favor.
Connie Britton returns to play a snobbish represent the upper class gracefully and punctually after The White Lotus, but we will soon discover that she is simply a deeply lonely woman, a far cry from her Nicole Mosbacher. She is alone as so many in the world feel without admitting it. Lonely how those left alive feel after the tragedy of the plane crash on the show. Taylor Schilling colors his character in many shades, which must balance having what he has always wanted in the worst possible way. Anna Uzele Adriana immediately charges the viewer with energy, torn between what she is and what she would like to be, not wanting to be engulfed and ruined by politics as happens to many. But it is certainly Colin O’Brien who surprises most of all. The casting made by the series in uniting well-known personalities from television showbiz with other more or less emerging ones is one of the strengths of the show, so much so that it uses some well-known faces for characters who already leave us in the incipit of the story being told. A courageous and apt choice.
A show that starts with an unexpected and surprising plot: initially one may think that only a few passengers will get off that plane, and not just one. This is where just like in Lost and The Leftovers (which was talking look a bit about those who stayed and not those who left) it is important not to solve the mystery of how the accident was possible, hybridizing it with the thriller genre and crime, but rather facing the conundrum of how to move forward in real life, staying within the drama genre, relying on a belief in something greater, that makes everything happen for a reason. Even if the big picture isn’t immediately clear to us and we’re too devastated to see it. For Katims, the team has always been important, and the community also in Parenthood. The family, sometimes really, is not the one you are born into but the one you choose, where you grow up and where you become what you are meant to be.
Dear Edward Review: The Last Words
Through the incredible experience of twelve-year-old Edward, the only survivor of a plane crash, the series deals with the trauma of mourning by exploiting a choral structure, in which the intertwining of the people involved in the disaster brings personal dramas to light. A decidedly dense fresco was full of emotions (at the risk of forcing the hand) with a solid and effective cast.
