| RATING: | 40% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Style Over Substance
Rather too leisurely, yet handsomely-made period drama featuring a strong central performance from Laura LINNEY.
John Adams fails to ignite as drama because it prefers the pageant of history to the lived reality of people’s experience. The budget is also too limited to show much in the way of battles - even though this would have added light & shade to the drama.
The hagiography is the typically-narrow White view of White history which implies that only White men are great - that everyone else is subordinate to them as well as unimportant in terms of both themselves and their relationship to Whites. This ahistorical and acontextual void makes comparisons with other revolutionary wars difficult - as it is intended to - as if this were the only justified revolution in history and the justified rebellions against Empires like the US today are no more than crazed terrorism.
This limited worldview spoils American drama because it cannot, then, escape the confines of propaganda. Only Whites are allowed to be terrorists; while hypocritically owning slaves and then loudly-proclaiming all men free - in reality, only White men.
The American Exceptionalism, here, possesses a clear analogy with the Vietnam War - especially atrocities against civilians - but this all-important historical link remains deliberately undramatized; leaving the issue of becoming-what-you-hate unexplored - while being constantly implied in the minds of the viewer.
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