ABOVE AVERAGE

At the premiere of this limited series, there were social-media reactions that boiled down to disgust at how misogynistic the character of Cathy Ames came across, and that it was typical of a man like John Steinbeck. Granted, this isn’t the first time that his novel ”East of Eden” has been accused of that, and it fits our moralistic age that some people can’t enjoy great books and films without dissecting and either approving or rejecting the personal life and views of the author. Thankfully, those views drowned out because of what a masterful job Zoe Kazan did in adapting the novel.

Raising two boys after the war
The story begins some time after the Civil War, with the widowed veteran Cyrus Trask (Tracy Letts) sternly raising two boys, Charles and Adam. His methods create animosity and distance between himself and his sons, as well as between them. As a young man, Adam (Christopher Abbott) leaves home while Charles (Mike Faist) becomes the one who stays behind. Years later, the brothers are reunited and make amends.

One night, a badly beaten young woman called Cathy (Florence Pugh) collapses on their porch and they nurse her back to health. Adam is enthralled by her beauty and charm, while Charles sees through her. When they decide to get married, Charles voices his disapproval, but it doesn’t matter. Adam talks Cathy into moving with her to California, but she has no intention of accepting a life of hardship and motherhood.

Discovering her grandfather’s work
Kazan is the granddaughter of the famous Hollywood director Elia Kazan, the one who in 1955 made his own version of Steinbeck’s novel. As a young woman, Zoe had a Steinbeck period and her parents showed her the famous film adaptation, starring James Dean. Zoe was surprised to learn that the film only adapts half the novel, leaving out some of the characters that she found the most arresting. Still, she could see her grandfather’s fingerprints all over the film. This miniseries became just as personal to her, moving across many decades like a sweeping epic from Hollywood’s golden age, ending some time after World War I with a beautifully moving scene where forgiveness, family and reunification play important roles. This matters in a story where sins of the past, stubbornness and self-reliance are key to several characters.

Cathy is evil, and Florence Pugh is perfect for the part

The great villain is of course Cathy, but together with Pugh Kazan crafts a rich portrait that makes us both understand and condemn her. She is partly as riveting a figure as any old soap villain, partly a person of flesh and bone who takes drastic measures because in the eyes of society at that time, her gender is a reason why she should be denied the opportunity to do whatever she wants with her life. So, up to a point we can sympathize with her – but she is evil, and Pugh is perfect for the part.

The cast delivers throughout, with Ciarán Hinds as the friendly, Irish story-teller and neighbor Samuel Hamilton, based upon Steinbeck’s own grandfather; Abbott as the pitifully downtrodden Adam who can’t get over Cathy in spite of the grief she causes him; and Hoon Lee as the Chinese-American help who becomes so much more than just that to the Trasks. In fact, that part of the story is superbly handled, teaching us about the reality of being Asian in California at the time, and also compellingly illustrating the reward of finding a family when you don’t have one from the start.

Unlike many other limited series, East of Eden uses all of its seven episodes wisely, pulling us into an intelligent, emotional, lavishly staged story.

East of Eden 2026-U.S. 353 min. Color. Created by Zoe Kazan. Teleplay: Zoe Kazan, Alexander Chee. Novel: John Steinbeck. Cast: Florence Pugh (Cathy Ames), Christopher Abbott (Adam Trask), Mike Faist (Charles Trask), Hoon Lee (Lee), Ciarán Hinds, Joseph Zada, Martha Plimpton, Tracy Letts.  

Trivia: Originally shown in seven episodes. Co-executive produced by Kazan and Pugh.

Last word: “In the early stages of writing, I really had to put my grandfather and his relationship to this material completely out of my head. And then as we were in preproduction and production, it started to sort of become so obvious that I couldn’t look past it any longer, that there was this sort of metatextual thing happening where this is a book that is literally about Steinbeck’s own grandfather and that he was wrestling with himself and his own history and that that was also true for me. You know, like Steinbeck said about this book, this is the story of my country and the story of me. I think that, too, about the ‘East Of Eden’ that I made.” (Kazan, NPR)