Miniseries Review: '11.22.63'

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In 2011, even before Scribner (a division of Simon & Schuster) published Stephen King's time travel novel 11/22/63, director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs) announced that he had acquired the film rights. He was intrigued by its premise - a 21st Century high school English teacher travels back in time to prevent John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963.  Demme would write the screenplay and direct the feature film, while King would be the project's executive producer.

It was a good idea on paper, but the reality was something entirely different.

According to Rolling Stone's Andy Greene, "[t]he book...had a rather rocky first step on its road to the screen. Director Jonathan Demme was the first license to it, though King had complete veto power over every aspect of the project. "He was pretty adamant that it be a theatrical film," says the bestselling author. "It was like, 'Jon, I don't know. This is pretty long and complex.' Making into a movie is like sitting on a suitcase. You try and cram everything in and something always gets left off. Eventually we looked at each other and said, 'This isn't going to work.'"

King, who knows a thing or two about adapting novels into feature films and television miniseries, had a point. The hardcover edition of 11/22/63 is, if you don't include the author's afterword, 842 pages long. Its time travel section covers a five-year period - from September 9, 1958 to November 22, 1963 and a bit beyond - and its plot features a huge cast of fictional characters (Jake Epping, Sadie Dunhill, Al Templeton, Harry Dunning, and Deacon "Deke" Simmons) and historical  characters, including Lee Harvey Oswald, his wife Marina, Soviet emigre George de Mohrenschildt, FBI Agent James Hosty, and Dr. Malcolm Perry, MD. 

A book with so many characters and such a complex plot, King realized, can't be easily adapted into a feature film. 

It could, however, be adapted into a miniseries. 

Apparently, J.J. Abrams, the creator of television's Felicity and Lost - and co-owner (with Bryan Burk) of Bad Robot Productions - had the same notion. Per Rolling Stone: 

Not long after Demme moved on from the project, J.J. Abrams made a deal with King to turn it into a miniseries for [Hulu] (under the title 11.22.63; the backslashes have been retired).

As luck would have it, actor James Franco also loved the novel so much that he wanted to develop King's novel as a miniseries. At the time, Franco was studying at Yale University and wasn't aware that Abrams already had the rights to 11/22/63:

He e-mailed King and inquired about the rights, only to be told the Force Awakens director beat him to it. But an online essay Franco wrote about the book for Vice got the attention of Abrams, who offered him the lead role." I quickly responded and said, 'I'm totally in as long as I can direct a little,'" says Franco. "He said, 'No problem!' ... and that was it."

Abrams teamed up with producer Bridget Carpenter and King (who retained his executive producer title). Along with a team that included Bryan Burk, writers Quinton People, Brian Nelson, and directors Kevin Macdonald, Fred Toye, James Strong, John David Coles, and James Kent, they came up with an eight-part miniseries that captures the spirit - if not the exact letter - of Stephen King's mind-bending trip through time.

The Miniseries:

Based upon the bestselling novel written by King and starring a terrific ensemble cast embodying deeply complex characters, 11/22/63 hurtles viewers deep into the unpredictable darkness of the American dream.

James Franco stars as Jake Epping, a high school teacher at a loss with his life, who wants to make a difference and do something meaningful. Encouraged by his ailing friend (Chris Cooper), Jake journeys back in time to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The story transports audiences into the world of 1960s Texas as Jake explores the multiple mysteries surrounding the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. But Jake's mission faces threats not only from Oswald, but from Sadie, a beautiful librarian he falls in love with, and from the Past itself...which doesn't want to be changed. And if the Past doesn't want to be changed, it will push back—often violently. - From the package blurb, 11.22.63

The miniseries, originally broadcast on Hulu between February 15 and April 4, 2016, has a total running time of 439 minutes, divided into eight episodes. The episodes are:

  • The Rabbit Hole
  • The Kill Floor
  • Other Voices, Other Rooms
  • The Eyes of Texas
  • The Truth
  • Happy Birthday, Lee Harvey Oswald
  • Soldier Boy
  • The Day in Question
As conceived by playwright and screenwriter Bridget Carpenter, 11.22.63 follows the basic plot of King's 2011 novel, but makes a few changes that were necessary in order to transport Jake Epping's story from the printed page to the screen.

First, Carpenter decided that the novel's first person narration had to go. It would have required a lot of voice-over narration, which she felt was too limiting and difficult to do. Instead, Carpenter greatly expanded the role of a relatively minor character from King's novel (Bill Turcotte) and made him Jake's traveling companion and partner in his quest to save JFK's life.

Second, she decided to compress the story considerably; instead of sending Jake Epping back as far back as 1958 as King does in the novel, 11.22.63 sends our protagonist back to 1960 - the year in which Sen. Kennedy of Massachusetts defeats Vice President Richard M. Nixon during that fateful Presidential election. (Other changes include the deletion of the chapter where Jake meets some of the kids from It in Derry, Maine and a section of the novel where Epping lives and works in Florida until he runs afoul of some mobsters.) 

Still, the main story of King's best-selling and award-winning novel are present in 11.22.63, and it is quite a tale. The suspenseful cat-and-mouse game between Jake and Lee Harvey Oswald is handled beautifully, while the love story that develops when Jake meets Sadie (Sarah Gadon) is both moving and heartbreaking. As in the novel, Jake realizes that while the idea of changing history may have its attractions, the consequences of tampering with it can be serious - and tragic.

Though several of Stephen King's novels have been adapted into miniseries by traditional television  networks, including ABC, CBS, and TNT, 11.22.63 proves that streaming services like Hulu offer more creative freedom. The narrative structure feels more like that of a movie than it does a TV miniseries; there aren't any commercial breaks that require artificial stops and starts in the story. Also, episodes can vary in length if the producers need them to: some have a running time of only 44 minutes, while The Rabbit Hole (the miniseries' premiere) is 1 hour and 21 minutes long.

The miniseries is somewhat vague about whether or not Oswald acted alone on November 22, 1963. That's mainly because 11.22.63 is a drama and not a documentary. Yes, the novel that it was based on was painstakingly researched by Stephen King's fact-finder Russ Dorr, and in the afterword to 11/22/63 the author states that he believes that Oswald was not part of a greater conspiracy. 

However, as Rolling Stone's Greene reports, not everyone involved in the miniseries is as sure as King about who was behind the Kennedy assassination: 

[A]fter spending so much time delving into the project Carpenter developed a different take. "I was a lone-gunman theorist at first," she says. "But I have turned 180 degrees. My theory is that he was part of the CIA and perhaps went rogue, and there was a cover-up because of the national embarrassment that would have caused." Franco is quite torn on the matter. "I'm easily swayed, and every theory has some plausibility," he says. "But then you read something like James Ellroy's American Tabloid, you're like, 'Oh damn, there is a conspiracy!'"

As a fan of King's 11/22/63, I believe that J.J. Abrams, Bridget Carpenter, and James Franco succeed in bringing the novel to life in this outstanding miniseries. The quality of the writing, directing, and editing is equal to - and sometimes better than - some of Hollywood's feature films. Yes, it's a pity that Jonathan Demme couldn't make this into another Silence of the Lambs-like film classic, but 11/22/63 would have suffered greatly if its story had been pared down to fit into a two-hour movie. 

I especially like the cinematography by Alan Suschitzky (son of The Empire Strikes Back's director of photography Peter Suschitzky) and David Katznelson (Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey). The two DPs tend to depict the 2016 "present day" scenes in subdued, somber tones that reflect Jake Epping's unsettled state of mind (he is recently divorced, and he's also teaching adult education classes so that his older students can earn GEDs at Lisbon Falls High). In sharp contrast, the scenes set in the 1960s tend to be more colorful, more vivid. (Think of Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can.) This reflects not just Jake's newfound passion for the past and his love for Sadie; it also evokes his determination to save Kennedy - and restore the optimism of JFK's New Frontier-era America. 

This, folks, is one of the best miniseries I've ever seen, and it's definitely one of the greatest adaptations of a Stephen King novel.  

The Blu-ray

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment released 11.22.63 on Blu-ray and DVD on August 9, 2016. The Blu-ray edition contains all eight episodes of the miniseries in a two-disc set. It presents the miniseries in 1080p high definition and its original 2.00:1 aspect ratio, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English audio track, a Dolby Digital 2.0 Portuguese audio track, plus subtitles in nine languages, including English, Spanish, French, and Norwegian. 

As far as extras go, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment offers a digital copy that can be downloaded using a code (included in the packaging) and a short making-of featurette, When the Future Fights Back. Here, King, Abrams, Franco, and Carpenter discuss how 11.22.63 was adapted from page to screen, what changes were made in the process, and the difficulties of depicting one of the most controversial events in world history. It's too short for my taste, but it is insightful and thought-provoking. 

Blu-ray Specifications

Video
  • Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (15.92 Mbps)
  • Resolution: 1080p
  • Aspect ratio: 2.00:1
  • Original aspect ratio: 2.00:1

Audio
  • English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
  • Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0

Subtitles
  • English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish

Discs
  • Blu-ray Disc
  • Two-disc set (2 BD-50)
  • UV digital copy
  • Digital copy

Packaging
  • Slipcover in original pressing

Playback
  • Region A 



Sources: 

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/how-j-j-abrams-and-hulu-brought-stephen-kings-11-22-63-to-tv-20160208

https://www.hulu.com/112263




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