Under the Banner of Heaven premieres with two episodes on April 28, 2022, on Hulu, with new episodes weekly on Thursdays.
Almost 200 years into its existence, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS Church or Mormonism, remains a mainstream mystery to most who aren’t members. FX on Hulu limited series Under the Banner of Heaven recognizes this, and attempts to contextualize the religion’s origins and tenents against the backdrop of two brutal Salt Lake City murders in 1984. Based on the bestselling book of the same name by journalist by Jon Krakauer, the series’ biggest misstep is adding a fabricated layer to the true-crime story and religious narratives by inserting the devout Mormon Detective Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield) as the lead on the murder case. Overall, it causes plausibility issues and pacing problems that result in too much drag in how the story unfolds.
Showrunner and executive producer Dustin Lance Black is well familiar with fundamental Mormonism as he was a writer/producer on HBO’s hit series, Big Love. And that series benefitted from the lighter tone and familial dynamics to both educate – and some would say overly titillate – about the LDS and their former practice of polygamy. Under the Banner of Heaven is the polar opposite as everything is entirely somber and sometimes bleak, from its tone down to the color palette. And while that’s fitting considering the inciting incident of the series is the real, brutal home murder of Brenda Wright Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her infant daughter back in 1984, the choice to tell three dense stories at once — the languid murder investigation, a flashback history of the fundamentalist Lafferty clan, and period piece sequences from the origins of the religion in the 1800s — burdens the pacing and plotting to an almost catechismal feel that is a slog to watch.
The two-episode premiere, “When God Was Love” and “Rightful Place,” sets up the multiple storylines that will drive the series, including LDS member Detective Jeb Pyre’s assignment to secure the crime scene of a grisly murder inside the quiet, suburban home of fellow Mormons Brenda and Allen Lafferty (Billy Howle). She and the baby are dead, and after the police arrive, a blood-soaked and dazed Allen returns to the home where he’s arrested. In an attempt to pepper the series with oppositional characters so we can get more personalized insight into the religious culture of the town, Black makes the tropey choice to have Pyre, the believer, paired with outside Detective Bill Taba (Gil Birmingham), a Native American Detective from Las Vegas, who understandably has personal and big city bias against the Mormans who have historically been unwelcome to any cultures outside their mostly white membership. Having a very empathetic Garfield embody Pyre as the “good cop” to whom Allen will trust in is a very easy way to get his complex story out, but the writing of the two detectives overall is very heavy-handed and as surface-level as if they were ripped from a not-so-great Law & Order episode.
There’s also the writing pitfall of having Pyre be a seasoned detective in the large city of Salt Lake and yet see him emotionally knee-capped by a murder amongst Mormons. We’re supposed to buy that his career hasn’t previously forced him to confront that people of his faith do terrible things, in a town populated mostly by Mormons? That it’s just this “magical” case that immediately has him questioning the tenets of his faith after one calm interrogation with Allen, the lapsed Mormon? Even though Garfield is giving a thoughtful and earnest performance, it’s all extremely convenient and pushes the plausibility. And structurally, it’s problematic to have the detective’s chase of the case pull focus from the actual crime so he can have a lot of pensive camera time to mull his potential crisis of faith.
Aside from those introductory issues, “When God Was Love” is weighed down by a lot of heavy exposition work laying out both the basics of this LDS family and the personal machinations motivating Allen’s people, the venerable and very large Lafferty clan. In flashbacks, Allen explains how he came to meet the vivacious but pious Brenda as a student at BYU. He’s mesmerized by her contemporary journalism studies and curious personality. But his conservative father, Ammon Lafferty (Christopher Heyerdahl), bristles at her modern ways. That conflict is the springboard for the series to explore the rise of more relaxed Mormonism in the ‘80s versus the extreme fundamentalist that saw Brenda as dangerous enough to earn a message from God to “remove her” from their lives. And with that knowledge is the clarity that this is not a story about solving the crime; rather one that uses the crime to understand the archaic and puzzling core tenets of Mormonism that lead plenty of its believers to align themselves with the impunity of God’s will instead of man’s law.
If you are fascinated with the history of the LDS or religious fanaticism in general, the series will likely be up your alley. But be warned that Black and his writers are indulgent in getting into the weeds of everything with their scenes set in the now, the recent past, and even some randomized historic sequences from the life of founders Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (which is plucked from how Krakauer told his story in the book). While that variety feels like it should rotate the storylines enough to be interesting, the length of these “windows into the past” go on for far too long in both episodes.
There’s also an overabundance of Lafferty characters to keep track of, or care about. Sam Worthington and Wyatt Russell try to distinguish their characters from the patriarchy pack, but nothing about the men they play are particularly compelling or even frightening in their zealtry. And the abundance of Lafferty drama time takes away any sense of urgency from the crime itself, as the narrative is constantly directing us to focus on what led up to it, not the repercussions or impact of it on anyone outside of Allen. And actor Billy Howle tries to give us that emotionality, but the writers are way more interested in framing him as a catalyst for challenging Pyre’s faith journey, rather than showing him as a grieving husband and father.
Under the Banner of Heaven is overstuffed with too many story threads that steal focus from one another. Perhaps some judicious pruning of characters and plots would have brought more focus to an emotional throughline. Two hours into it, though, the series already feels like an overlong history lesson on Mormonism and its most fundamentalist sects, lacking in excitement or stakes.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/viP97sr
This could be a real lead forward for personal gaming... Revolutionise gaming
No comments:
Post a Comment