- Network: SundanceTV , SundanceTV HDTV (East) , SundanceTV HDTV , Sundance TV
- Series Premiere Date: May 23, 2019
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Critic Reviews
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The series has captured the look and feel of the abbey and its inhabitants very well, and it has a lot of dialogue that’s taken directly from the novel. But never fear, it also does the novel one better by adding a bunch of stuff. Like an Arya Stark character. And a love story.
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Turturro, who is credited not only as an executive producer but one of the miniseries’ four writers, gives one of the most restrained performances of his career. His cleric is soft-spoken, always watchful of every detail in a room. His efforts seem to give other performers license to overact.
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Where the adaptation follows the original text, it does so generally well, finding the salient points in pages of discussions. The sensational interpolations — the "Game of Thrones" stuff — are less successful, though I am sure they will please a substantial portion of the crowd. And while Turturro's performance is a model of intelligent equanimity, other actors — including Emerson as the abbey's abbot, Stefano Fresi as the Caliban-Quasimodo figure Salvatore, and Fabrizio Bentivoglio as Remigio, a monk with a dark past — push their parts to the edge of the parapet and sometimes over. The more intense the action, the more risible the series becomes.
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Turturro is in many ways the best thing about the show, diving into the material's complexity and bringing a steadying screen presence to what, in short order, becomes a real mess.