Houdini, Channel 4’s latest US drama acquisition, follows the life of Harry Houdini as he rises from humble beginnings to become a world-renowned escape artist.
Written by Nicholas Meyer, and starring Oscar and Academy Award winner Adrien Brody as Harry Houdini, the series attempts to explore the childhood of Erich Weiss, a rabbi’s son from Wisconsin who’s obsessed with becoming a ‘somebody’. After seeing a travelling show and reading a book about magic, young Erich vows to turn himself into the greatest illusionist of all time; note the level of cliché in this sentence, it sets the tone for the rest of the show.
Houdini is all about grand gestures, resulting in everything else being cut down to the basics. His early life is reduced to a Freudian love for a doting mother and an extreme fear of a withholding father. His marriage is reduced to a love at first sight story, in which he fall for Bess, a dimensionally lacking Kristen Connolly. Jim Collins’ (Evan Jones) vital role as engineer behind the illusions is reduced to a handyman, who occasionally offers some light comic relief.
Plot-wise, Houdini’s diversion into espionage for the U.S. and British governments before World War I has potential to be interesting, but lacks development and historical accuracy. The desire to make Houdini a superhero-like figure is too blatant, and moreover, completely unsuccessful. Brody’s Houdini is a smarmy, all-knowing womanizer, and the abundance of gratuitous topless scenes is the only payoff.
The narrative is moved by Houdini’s tricks, which although impressive and interesting, fail in sustaining narrative entertainment. Uli Edel’s direction is animated, trying to communicate the suspense these illusions would inspire, but the explanations behind them destroy the magic.
The show is based on “Houdini: A Mind in Chains: A Psychoanalytic Portrait,”, and you can tell. The script is as dreary as a psychoanalytic paper, with Houdini’s voice over only highlighting what the show fails to express. Condescending and full of clichés, like “you may not be afraid of death, but you’re afraid of life,” and the truly cringe worthy, “the one thing I can’t escape from… is me,” the voice fails to create a greater meaning. The show seems confused about its own identity – flitting between a dramatic piece and a glorified documentary.
The show is particularly disappointing because the life it depicts, that of the great Houdini, was truly fascinating. Such a visually pleasing mini-series is let down by leaving too little to the imagination, and over-glamorizing the rest.
Anastasia Kennedy
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