11.22.63
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
James Franco goes back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination, and the past pushes back. Adapted from Stephen King’s best novel of the 2010s, this eight episode Hulu limited series is a slowly building period piece: a modern teacher slips through a closet portal to 1960 and falls in love with a Texas schoolteacher (Sarah Gadon, luminous) while stalking Lee Harvey Oswald (a genuinely creepy Daniel Webber). The conspiracy is the MacGuffin, the show is really about whether time travel is a moral act, and King’s answer (the past is obdurate; it doesn’t want to be changed) becomes the engine of dread.
Franco does finest work work playing both the weary present day man and his hopeful past self, and the period fidelity makes the nostalgia feel dangerous, the meatloaf and slow dances are all seduction. The finale makes the choice the book made, and it’s a heartbreaker. Eight hours, complete story, no season 2 necessary.
Verdict: Watch it. King adaptations this faithful and this well cast are rare birds.
