After a moment, a friend explained that “people hate that show.”
Why, we asked, did he hate the show?
Oh, no, not him. In fact, not anyone in the room. But critics, critics hated it. They were slamming it like crazy.
We exchanged a look with one another and made a mental shared note: Why aren’t we surprised.
Neil LaBute. Let’s start there. Neil’s an artist, a real one. Art confuses the Water Cooler Set. They’re the type who mistake postcard cinematography in a film for “depth” and “meaning.” They can’t recognize living art because they weren’t spoon fed it in a class. The Water Cooler Set knows how to regurgitate – actual thought is what they struggle with.
Neil LaBute is an angry artist or at least one who taps into anger. That’s fine, anger is an emotion and art is about exploring emotions. IN THE COMPANY OF MEN and YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS are film classics. THIS IS HOW IT GOES and IN A FOREST, DARK AND DEEP are classic plays. He is an original and that especially makes him uncommon.
Again, The Water Cooler Set only knows what it’s been given the CLIFF NOTES on. Anything new throws it. But the anger issue, that reminds us of Sam Peckinpah and specifically how anger over violence in film led many critics to turn on Pekinpah in the 70s. The Water Cooler Set aspires to gentility – at least when it comes to how they see themselves.
Is THE I-LAND just too much for them?
We’d argue that it is. There’s a scene where a woman eats soup, for example, only to learn that the ‘meat’ in her soup is from her own chopped off fingers. The Water Cooler Set tends to dwell on that. It’s just such a shock to their sensibility. This is the crowd which, please note, still frets over the ‘blood letting’ on ENDEAVOUR when Van Horn discovered Christine dead following her fall down the stairs.
Mainly, though, it’s the larger issues that Neil struggling with which upsets them: The prison-industrial complex, the way we experiment on prisoners, etc.
If you’re on THE I-LAND (spoiler), it’s because you are a death row prisoner. Because you’re on death row, you have no value or meaning to the system except as a laboratory rat. The people on THE I-LAND signed up for this experiment. They’re not really anywhere but at the prison. They’re basically in a medically induced coma. Supposedly, this is to test if people can be rehabilitated.
But as Chase (Natalie Martinez) points out when she learns what’s what, how is being bitten by a shark rehabilitation? How is being stuck on an island with a predator who has raped repeatedly qualifying as rehabilitation?
Clearly, the program is designed for more than the academic team either knows or is willing to admit.
As the events (and episodes) wind down, we learn Chase is innocent. She didn’t commit murder. Her husband (Ronald Peet) committed the murder and did it all by himself but he wanted Chase with him – or at least not with anyone else – so he claimed they murdered her mother together. By this time, we’re hopefully invested enough in the island characters that we don’t need that out. Hopefully, we’re outraged by what is done them regardless of guilt or innocence because this is not how we treat people.
If you’re opposed to capital punishment – we are – you’ll be sympathetic to a lot of the messages.
Neil is dealing with a lot of big issues including climate change. It’s an ambitious canvas he’s painting on. Maybe too ambitious for The Water Cooler Set – correction: Too ambitious for The Water Cooler Set.
There are some wonderful performances including the already mentioned Natalie Martinez and Ronald Peet. Stacy Keech, for example, has great fun playing the evil warden and he’s a delight to watch. Margaret Colin reminds just how strong of an actress she is. Maria Conchita Alonso, Kyle Schmid, Sibyalla Dean, Kota Eberhardt, Michelle Veintimilla, Dailia Davi -- everyone, in fact, does a great job even Alex Pettyfer playing one of the most disgusting characters on the island. The directing is great as well – that’s Neil, that’s Jonathan Scarfe and that’s especially Darnell Martin (whose I LIKE IT LIKE THAT made this site’s “Feminist Classic Films of the 90s”)
A lot of talent went into this series – clearly too much talent for The Water Cooler Set to cope with.