TV

John Adams

by Alli Katz

You know what’s nasty to watch? Paul Giamatti’s wig fall off because he (fully dressed) is about to hump an also fully dressed Laura Linney, and then speak sweetly to her with dialogue cribbed from 150-year-old letters.

This is the core of the failure of John Adams. There’s nothing more disorienting than a sad-sack modern guy uttering philosophical lines as he cuddles with his wife while wearing a tri-corner hat. Giamatti’s skills are wasted here, and he sounds more like a historical interpreter working a part-time summer job than one of the founding fathers. Why watch it on HBO when you can walk over to Old City and see it in person?

It doesn’t help that the miniseries is filmed like the cameraman had too much of John’s cousin Sam’s brew. Every scene is shot at a funky angle. Maybe it’s supposed to give us a sense of the unrest of the times, but it’s mostly just nauseating.

The first part of the seven-part series is the worst, as Adams tries to reconcile his desire for integrity with the needs of Massachusetts. It is painfully dull, and even a tar-and-feather scene fails to spice it up.

But not everything about the series is terrible. Later episodes are both historically more interesting (the signing of the Declaration, a trip to Versailles) and allow for more screen-time by the supporting cast. Linney is wonderful as Abigail, almost making the clunky, antiquated dialogue sound natural.

Then there’s the trio of awesome: Thomas Jefferson (Stephen Dillane), Ben Franklin (Tom Wilkinson) and George Washington (Philly’s own David Morse in a prosthetic nose). They have the advantage of playing vastly more interesting characters, and they do it joyfully. Wilkinson’s Franklin, dressed almost entirely in fur as he wittily handles the French, will make you proud to be American.

Giamatti makes John Adams look like a PBS reenactment; the other three, along with Linney, save the series.