Plot: A post-apocalyptic saga spanning multiple timelines, this limited drama series tells the stories of survivors of a devastating flu as they attempt to rebuild and reimagine the world anew while holding on to the best of what’s been lost.
Review: Within the almost two years that COVID-19 has changed our existence, television shows and films have struggled with how to portray pandemics on screen. Some have been on the nose and others have been post-apocalyptic tales, but all have been unable to capture what it really is like. At this point, Hollywood seems to have decided to ignore reality and tell stories the same way they did before the coronavirus. The latest project to hit close to home is Station Eleven, based on the acclaimed novel by Emily St. John Mandel. taking place over the twenty years after a cataclysmic pandemic, Station Eleven is unlike any other post-apocalyptic movie or series we have seen and that is mostly thanks to its hopeful and surprisingly light tone.
With a location shift to Chicago, Station Eleven opens in the present day as a deadly flu rapidly spreads across the world, killing 99% of humanity. With teasing shifts to the way the city looks twenty years in the future, the first episode (of three that will premiere this week on HBO Max) spends a lot of time in the infancy of the contagion as panic begins to set in. I found this first episode to be as eerie as anything we have seen in the real world. Maybe that is because I live in the Chicagoland area or maybe it is because of the calm before the storm, but the slowly encroaching fall of society is palpable as we are introduced to Jeevan (Himesh Patel) and young Kirsten (Matilda Lawler) and how the death of actor Arthur Leander (Gael Garcia Bernal) brings them together. For the entire opening hour, you feel the building dread as you realize most of the people on screen will soon be dead.
The series then shifts twenty years ahead to a now-adult Kirsten, played by Terminator: Dark Fate‘s Mackenzie Davis, who leads a traveling troupe of Shakespearean actors as they perform for the remnants of the Great Lakes area. The series shifts over the ten-episode series between multiple characters over the twenty-year time span which can be something of a challenge to keep up with. There are familiar faces like Lori Petty as The Conductor and David Cross as Gil, but most of these actors are not immediately recognizable, allowing them to blend into the ensemble and allow you to invest in the story. And invest you must as each chapter of Station Eleven shifts through time, sometimes by days and other times by years, while also shifting from one character to another. Some of the characters are more rewarding than others, like Miranda Carroll (Danielle Deadwyler), the author of the titular graphic novel that connects many of the protagonists in this story.
While there are certainly stakes for these characters throughout this epic story, the core of Station Eleven is really about art as it serves as a love letter to acting, especially in regards to the work of William Shakespeare. There are religious zealots like The Prophet (Daniel Zovatto) who pose a risk to the safety of Kirsten and her troupe, but this is not The Walking Dead or The Stand. Station Eleven is more focused on showing the connection between the past and the future through art. The graphic novel that Kirsten reads over her life is a nexus point that brings the old society in line with the new. This series is also not designed to wallow in sadness and finds quite a bit of levity. In the second episode, a character dramatically reenacts Bill Pullman’s famous speech from Independence Day. If that isn’t as far from zombies and apocalypse, I don’t know what is.
Adapted by Patrick Somerville (Maniac, The Leftovers) and directed by Hiro Murai (Barry, Atlanta), Station Eleven is a beautiful production that makes amazing use of physical locations enhanced to look like the end of the world. Some may see some visual similarities with the world of The Walking Dead, but Station Eleven is far more focused on presenting growth and renewal of the world rather than the grime and rot that the long-running zombie series revels in. The non-linear storytelling is also helped by the visual changes in the landscape, offering looks at the beginning, middle, and end of everything. There are also a lot of changes in the source material. While it came in at just under 350 pages, the scope of the novel was quite ambitious. Some may be confused by the changes to the story, but they ultimately work well on screen.
There is a reason that HBO Max will premiere this series with three episodes. The shifting narrative and timeline of Station Eleven make this a very complex series to watch and it does take some time to get comfortable with it, but that is also part of the charm of what distinguishes this series from all the other pandemic tales out there. There are no monsters but rather families forged from the fallout of a disaster. This is an inspiring and heartfelt tale about literature, drama, and love for what will survive when nature course corrects. Station Eleven is haunting and beautiful but also lyrical and in the face of so much death at the hands of an invisible killer, this story manages to show us what people are really capable of.
Station Eleven premieres on December 16th on HBO.