Editor’s note: The below mentions sexual assault and domestic abuse.

Margaret Atwood may be best known for her seminal novel The Handmaid’s Tale, but the prolific writer has six decades’ worth of published material under her belt. Given that repertoire, her works haven’t been brought to screen as often as one would expect. In a fun twist of fate, the same year that Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale debuted to widespread acclaim, a correspondingly visceral adaptation of Atwood’s 1996 book hit Netflix.

Directed by Mary Harron (American Psycho) and written by Sarah Polley (Women Talking), the Canadian miniseries Alias Grace fictionalizes the life of Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), a notoriously controversial historical figure. Harron and Polley magnify Atwood’s scathing analysis into an enthralling psychological thriller ripe with impeccable suspense, lush subtlety, and fraught curiosity.

What Is ‘Alias Grace’ About?

In 1843, 16-year-old Irish immigrant Grace Marks and her fellow servant, James McDermott (Kerr Logan), were convicted of murdering their wealthy Canadian employer, Thomas Kinnear (Paul Gross), and his housekeeper-slash-lover, Nancy Montgomery (Anna Paquin). McDermott was executed, but the court commuted Grace’s death sentence to life in prison. Three decades later, Grace received a formal pardon and vanished like smoke in the wind.

Debate still ripples over whether Grace was an accessory in McDermott’s vicious double homicide, an active perpetrator, or an unaware bystander McDermott kidnapped and framed as a scheming mastermind. Atwood’s creative liberties embrace the true crime case’s turbulent economic backdrop and the symbolic potential behind the verdict’s unsettling ambiguity. Alias Grace offers no definitive answers; even the details Grace describes as indisputable fact could be fabricated.

Regardless, the events inform the outlook of this “celebrated murderess” — and her father’s childhood abuse, her mother’s traumatic death, and her younger siblings depending upon her as a financial provider, strike too close to home to suspend disbelief. Grace’s employers enjoy their comforts while her sore, sweaty muscles scrub floors, any complaints locked behind her closed teeth. Grace repeats such obedience during her sanatorium days and earns special privileges for behaving as composed and articulate as decorum dictates.

‘Alias Grace’ Combines History, Speculation, and Biting Critique

Underneath Grace’s studiously neutral expressions, however, lies astute intelligence and seething resentment. Household after household, she witnesses how predatory men corner, assault, and kill women in a casual and remorseless cycle. One privileged son sweeps Grace’s only friend, the rebellious Mary Whitney (Rebecca Liddiard), off her feet. Once she’s pregnant, he abandons her. Desperate, knowing her tarnished reputation is an unmarried worker’s death sentence, Mary risks an illegal abortion and dies from mutilation and blood loss. Grace comprehends the agonizing rhythm of her Puritanical world — which some women uphold for their own security or superiority — long before it commodifies her into a sensationalized, malleable blank slate upon which to project patriarchal misogyny.

Regardless of Grace’s guilt or innocence, every reporter, judge, and civilian twists her testimony to suit their contradictory agendas. For some, she’s a propaganda cautionary tale: a sinful seductress who violated her subservient role. Those campaigning for her exoneration paint her as a guileless and pure victim. Bored socialites gawk because they crave thrilling entertainment. As for her mental and physical distress, consider yourself unsurprised that the doctors and penitentiary wards who brutally torture and rape Grace dismiss her as hysterical — the 19th century’s favorite catch-all diagnosis for women whose pain and fury defy an oppressive system.

Harron and Polley contrast how Victorian restraints warp Grace into a cultural lightning rod with the subversive opening image of her staring at her reflection. Grace’s identity as a working-class immigrant teenager navigating layered prejudices (class, gender, religion, xenophobia) illuminates why she’s offered up like a buffet feast. Everyone wants to pin this intriguing anomaly on their walls like a display insect. Yet Grace denies anyone access to her true self; they have no right to her last unmarred, private fragment. Even Grace’s unreliable narration invites the audience in yet holds them at a distance, evading facts when it matters most. She remains a self-contained mystery as painstakingly patchwork as Atwood’s quilt motif.

‘Alias Grace’ Is an Enthralling and Elusive Tragedy

Image via Netflix

If Grace indeed got away with murder, was the act born of cruelty or because she saw violence as the only way to express resistance? Was she akin to the trapped animal that gnaws its leg off to escape — her survival instincts and cumulative rage misdirected? Either disquieting way, Atwood’s interpretation manipulates psychiatrist Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft). Although he presumes himself kind, he falls for his preconceived, constructed fantasy of a delicate creature who needs white-knight protection, and his sexual violence still explodes like an inevitable bomb. Jordan’s infatuated lust is another form of imprisonment; Grace’s sly rejection is the best justice she can seize.

Polley’s reverence for Atwood’s lyrical prose and resonant critiques shines through her superb translation. Harron’s adept hand for violence and satire lends itself to a psychological miasma — the laser-focused close-ups, the dread permeating like walls closing in. Piece by piece, the mesmerizing Gadon embodies a woman with manifold depth. Her straight-backed, opaque poise and piercing, soulful eyes attest to a subjugated child who’s never had the luxury of naivety, as well as a discerning, lonely adult whose safety depends upon satisfying performative mandates. All this said, one does wish for a multifaceted tableau that isn’t as white-centric. Even so, Alias Grace haunts viewers like the hushed murmurs of “murderess” trail Grace’s steps.

Alias Grace

Release Date

2017 – 2017-00-00

Network

CBC Television

Directors

Mary Harron

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  Edward Holcroft

  Mrs. Quenell