Will Alias Grace be Netflix’s next female-driven… | Little White Lies

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Will Alias Grace be Netflix’s next female-dri­ven success?

25 Jul 2017

Words by Courteney Tan

Mary Har­ron and Sarah Pol­ley join forces for this adap­ta­tion of Mar­garet Atwood’s acclaimed novel.

It appears that Mar­garet Atwood is hav­ing a moment. Fol­low­ing Hulu’s bril­liant real­i­sa­tion of ​‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, Net­flix are bring­ing the Cana­di­an author’s award-win­ning 1996 nov­el ​‘Alias Grace’ to the small screen. (We’re hop­ing for an adap­ta­tion of ​‘The Heart Goes Last’ next.)

The six-part series will tell the sto­ry of Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), an Irish ser­vant liv­ing in Cana­da who in 1843 was con­vict­ed of the mur­der of her employ­er, Thomas Kin­n­ear, and his house­keep­er, Nan­cy Mont­gomery. Marks’ calm, inno­cent demeanour was a major talk­ing point at the time, caus­ing many to ques­tion whether she was capa­ble of such brutality.

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Like the book, the show will incor­po­rate a fic­tion­al nar­ra­tive along­side these true events through the char­ac­ter of Simon Jor­dan (Edward Hol­coft), a doc­tor who attempts to help Marks rec­ol­lect the truth of what hap­pened. Round­ing out the cast are Anna Paquin as Nan­cy Mont­gomery, and David Cro­nen­berg, the acclaimed direc­tor of The Fly and Video­drome, who is set to appear in the first episode in an undis­closed role.

Much of Atwood’s sto­ry­telling genius lies in her abil­i­ty to com­bine his­tor­i­cal events with a fic­tion­al world that feels all too real, and it will be fas­ci­nat­ing to see what writer Sarah Pol­ley and direc­tor Mary Har­ron will make of this the­mat­i­cal­ly rich work.

Alias Grace is released on CBC on 25 Sep­tem­ber and on Net­flix lat­er in 2017.

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