John Adams

Liberty will reign in America!

Since I first watched the film version of 1776 (1972) I have been a big John Adams fan. William Daniels (The Graduate, KITT from Knight Rider and Boy Meets World) plays the main character, a loud, opinionated Bostonian patriot who demands independence from the sovereign power of Britain. What’s not to love? Yes, I’m also partial to musicals, but something about the character always captivated me.

Reading David McCullough’s excellent novel, John Adams, only solidified my admiration. McCullough paints Adams as a true patriot, sacrificing his own personal career and fortune to create and then work for his developing country; one that largely followed his vision of a new, great republic, a unique opportunity to found something that would become a lasting legacy the likes of which the world had never seen. He credits Adams as largely responsible for developing our current system of government: strong executive branch, independent judiciary, upper and lower houses of congress. What’s more, he put a lot of this down on paper when he was in his twenties!

So you can image when I heard that HBO planned to adapt John Adams into a mini-series in partnership with Tom Hanks, and starring Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, David Morse and Tom Wilkinson, I was excited. This came only a short time after it was announced that HBO had optioned one of my all time favorite fictional book series, A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R Martin. It seemed almost as if it couldn’t be true. After all, I had been a big fan of such HBO greats as Oz, Deadwood, Rome, Flight of the Conchords and Extras. I never understood the popularity of The Sopranos, though I appreciated others such as Entourage, Band of Brothers, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Dream On, Da Ali G Show and Big Love.

If nothing else HBO continued to turn out interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining stuff. Prior to some great shows like Lost and 24, with strong cinematic elements, making their way onto mainstream TV, quality dramatic television programming seemed largely absent amidst a sea of situation comedies and, unfortunately, a growing reality TV influx. But HBO always seemed to come through with some different, something worth turning the tube on for. Inevitably, all of this made me start really anticipate the coming of John Adams.

After having now watched half of the serious, however, I am unfortunately disappointed. None of the passion and fire is there, in the titular character, that was present in the novel and in other depictions to date. The narrative tends to follow a mostly plodding pace, covering drawn-out, dialogue-riddled happenings of times past. The creators have failed to infuse the energy of Adams into the story, to capitalize on dramatic moments of his life, instead choosing to go with a more normalized interpretation of how matters probably transpired. The book was a historical account, with exploration of his character and private life, providing the series creators with the opportunity to spice up the visual language and circumstances a bit.

While a lot of the more interesting, and important, elements are covered, many are overlooked. A great amount of tension is created between Mr. Adams and his family, whichI have yet to read an account that validates, though disagreement between John and some of his colleagues (e.g. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin) are portrayed with decent effect.

Giamatti does a good job as Mr. Adams, as does Laura Linney as his wife, Abigail. But for two infamous lovers, I fail to see much spark between them on screen. Abigail’s grounding and counseling of her husband is given fair treatment, though thus far his son and future president, John Quincy, is coming off as a whiney, sniveling little weakling. David Morse plays a good, and seemingly accurate, George Washington, while Stephen Dillane’s creepy portrayal of Thomas Jefferson satisfies my desire to see some of the lesser qualities of the great man brought to light. Not that I dislike Jefferson, or any of the founding fathers for that matter, but rather that Adams, when you get right down to it, appears to me to have been a man of greater personal character and conviction than he rightly has gotten credit for in the past.

While I am glad that another outlet has been created in which one of the least popular founders of the United States of America, will hopefully get some more attention, I am thus far unimpressed with this effort from HBO and the series’ producers. Here’s to hoping that the remainder of John Adams takes a dramatic shift in the direction of inspiration and entertainment.