The experience of viewing this miniseries was a mixed bag for me. Let's start with the good: the production is very well done from a filmmaker's perspective. Thomas Newman delivered a moving score, the performances given by Al Pacino, Patrick Wilson, Mary Louise-Parker, Ben Shenkman and Justin Kirk were superb. And, the narrative pulled me in and kept me interested for all seven hours of it (I binge watched it all in one sitting because I just had to know how it all ended). It's definitely not a boring watch, it's a fascinating one. Unfortunately, that's where my praise ends. Not everyone in the cast gave their best: Meryl Streep's three performances felt unconvincing and shallow to me. The worst of the three being her depiction of a jewish rabbi. I thought her performance as Patrick Wilson's mother was closest to being a real person, but I had issues with it still. Emma Thompson went way over-the-top as the angel that visits the dying Prior (Justin Kirk) in visions that can only be described as a mixture of horror and eroticism. I'm still not even sure he really had visions, they seemed more like delusions to me. I also disliked the way this series depicted members of the Latter-Day Saint community. While I didn't sense any true hatred or bigotry against this religion from the writers or actors, I did see a lot of errors that probably stem more from mere ignorance about what these people are really like. The tone of the production also felt scattershot. At times it gets so campy and overblown that I wondered if I were watching a comedy. The subject matter is very serious but the theatrical nature of the source wasn't toned down for the screen and so I was confused by it. In the end, the experience that I will never forget, there are many scenes permanently etched into my memory. Unfortunately, it's also something I didn't enjoy. I felt creeped out by the scenes involving Emma Thompson's angel character, I was appropriately depressed and heartbroken by the turmoil in the marriage between Parker and Wilson, and while I don't necessarily like the characters I did feel empathy for them. I've got mixed feelings about what I saw: it's a great adaptation of the play and it's something I hope never to see again.
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