Death. Intrigue. Politics. Literary fame.
J.K Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy came with some heavy baggage for HBO‘s production team. And yet, HBO accepted the challenge, releasing its interpretation of the dark and lyrical novel by the infamous author in a three part miniseries on April 29th.
The series begins with a promising start, panning over the beautified and idealized rolling hills of Pagford. As birds chirp and soft, pleasant music plays, the audience follows a solitary runner crossing over streams and weaving through the cobblestone streets of small and seemingly perfect town. Even as the story line continues to reveal the insidious actions of the Parish Council and their desires to rid the town from the low-income housing after their only champion dies, Pagford remains the perfect small town.
In this sense, director Jonny Campbell was successful in his depiction of Rowling’s first adult novel. Campbell, however failed to capture the greatness of all of Rowling’s works—character development. In the 180 minutes allotted to the miniseries, he was unable to provide the audience with the haunting and riveting story lines of the people of Pagford. Kay Bawden was left as nothing more than a struggling social worker, her story line flat and unoriginal.
Sukhvinder Jawanda, the shy daughter of the outspoken doctor, was practically left out of the series. The only character given any true depth was Terri Weedon. Keeley Forsyth’s gripping portrayal of the conflicted drug addict added one of the few beautiful touches of reality to the somewhat lackluster miniseries. The quietly brilliant scene in which Terri and Krystal stare up at the stars and question their unfortunate circumstances reminds the audience to love these tragic and raw portrayals of humanity. It reminds the audience to care about their fate and the fate of Pagford.
As the series progresses towards its grim climax, giving brief glimpses of families struggling to stay together, it distances itself from the brief character development of the first installment. No longer are the characters given the time to flourish, only brief screenshots of their increasingly emotional distress. Possibly in an attempt to give the audience a clean getaway from Rowling’s original heartbreaking finish to an already unfortunate story line, Campbell tells the story with a certain detachment from the hard-hitting elements of The Casual Vacancy. This attempt, however, is inevitably unsuccessful.
Regardless of the character’s increasingly short appearances, one cannot help getting attached the the tragic figure of Krystal Weedon. (SPOILER ALERT) Her death, changed completely in an attempt to make it more bearable, is left just as tragic as it was first written. As writers and producers stripped away the particularly gruesome details, they took away the authenticity of Rowling’s work. No longer was her death a mark of defiance against the cruelty of the world Rowling had created, but now it was simply a tragic death. In this vital shift, The Casual Vacancy became nothing more than a sad story about small town politics where a girl dies in the end.
