Lord of the Flies Review

More than seventy years after publication, the novel finally gets a television adaptation, and four episodes turns out to be the right shape for it. Jack Thorne writes the drift toward violence as a sequence of small, reasonable agreements rather than a sudden collapse, which is more disturbing than any single act on the island, and Marc Munden shoots the place as a beautiful and wholly indifferent character that does not care what happens on it.

Critics were close to unanimous about the casting. The ensemble of boys is the strongest thing in the production, with Ralph, Jack and Piggy played by children who understand that the argument between them is about fear rather than power, and reviewers singled the young cast out as the reason the adaptation earns its standing among the year's best. The dissent concerns additions.

Thorne gives several boys backstories the book withholds, and a number of critics argue that explaining them softens Golding's point, which is that no explanation is required. A few also find the score insistent and the wide lens grammar showy where restraint would cut deeper. Audiences have run notably cooler than the reviews, which fits a piece this unpleasant and this unwilling to offer relief. It is a hard, handsome, seriously made version of a book most people last thought about at fifteen.