Alias Grace · Season 1 · Netflix
Alias Grace Season 1
Alias Grace Season 1 is a MUST-WATCH, BollyMeter 9.1/10. 6 episodes on Netflix from 25 September 2017.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Alias Grace arrived September 2017, adapted by Sarah Polley from Margaret Atwood's 1996 novel about Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), an Irish immigrant convicted of murdering her employer and his housekeeper in 1840s Upper Canada. Dr. Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft) is commissioned to interview her and assess her sanity; what he encounters is a narrative that refuses resolution: Grace is simultaneously convincing and opaque. Critics gave 99 percent approval, with reviewers praising Gadon's 'hypnotic' performance and the adaptation's fidelity to Atwood's formal ambiguity - the novel never tells us definitively what Grace did or knew, and the series respects that refusal. David Cronenberg as a reverend and Zachary Levi against type are notable supporting performances.
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The Room
“Biting social commentary and Sarah Gadon's hypnotic performance make Alias Grace a worthy addition to the Margaret Atwood adaptation catalog.”
Rotten Tomatoes (consensus)
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1Part 18.5
Sarah Polley's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel opens as a formal puzzle: Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), convicted of murder in 1840s Canada, narrates her story to a young psychiatrist with a confidence and control that immediately makes the testimony suspect. The premiere establishes Grace's unreliability not as a trick but as the series' central subject: who gets to tell their own story, and what does telling it cost.
The moment: Grace's first session with Dr. Jordan - the specific way Gadon modulates between performance and candour, which makes the question of what is real the episode's animating tension from the first minutes.
Full review of E1 →