Henry E. Dreher 2008-11-16
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
I just want to add a few thoughts to the mostly glowing reviews here. Brilliant conception, astoundingly smart and believable writing, and most of all, microscopically brilliant acting. The reason this series is as great as the very best HBO shows - including Sopranos, the Wire, Deadwood,etc.-- the ones that have broad visual canvasses lacking on the mostly one-room IN TREATMENT--is that you see as much going on visually on the actors' faces as you did in the striking settings (New Jersey lanscapes, bada bing, dusty Western saloons, dark brothel rooms, etc.) of those other shows.
If Gabriel Byrne did not spend a decade in therapy it's hard to understand how he aced the mannerisms and expressions of psychotherapists. Byrne's face was as active just watching his patients talk as it was when he was talking and gesticulating. And oh, what gesticulating. Every single actor who played one of his patients was not just good but jaw-droppingly good. Layers and layers of thought and emotion, often ones contradicting each other at the same split second in time, can be gleaned off their faces. (All you have to do is watch them as closely as Byrne does.) Embeth Davidtz's arching eyebrows had so much attitude, her body language betrayed so much ache and anger beneath the words that were drenched in denial. Josh Charles peeled open his character over the eight weeks like delicate layers of onion. Blair Underwood's physical and attitudinal bluster was so believable that it was genuinely shocking when his confusion and heartbreak came pouring out toward the end. Michelle George as Laura was a revelation. Why isn't this woman a big-time movie star? As right for her character, the actress created a slippery sexuality at once seductive and suspicious; yet still, she managed to reveal a vulnerability perched right at the corner of manipulation and authentic pain. You could never make up your mind about her, which is exactly what was required by the story of this unnerving and unnervingly beautiful character. Dianne Weist couldn't have been more credible as a psychoanalyst if she herself had spent a decade in analytic training. But perhaps most astonishingly of all, Mia Wasikowska as Sophie, the teenage gymnast, created the most indelible of all the patient characters. Apparently without much prior acting experience, Wasikowska managed to embody all the contradictions of the most complexly written character on the show, and she brought dimensions beyond what was written. Her voice, her physicality, her minute facial expressions could not have been any more revealing even when her character was doing everything she could to hide her painful truths not only from Paul the therapist but from herself. How she pulled it off is a miracle of genius acting from a relative neophyte. The fact that she wasn't even nominated for an Emmy is bizarre. Who are these people doing the nominating? The NY TIMES did an article some weeks before announcement of the Emmy nominations calling for her nomination. You'd have to be blind, deaf, and certainly dumb not to have been dumbfounded by her performance. I guess she gets something of a last laugh; I just read that she was cast by Tim Burton as the lead in his upcoming version of "Alice in Wonderland." HE was certainly paying attention watching her perform IN TREATMENT.
The direction and everything else was perfect, and the script, transmogrified somewhat from the Israeli version, was as layered and brilliant as the acting that fleshed it all out. So I am thrilled to have also just read that the series has been renewed. It is being filmed now, it seems, and will be aired sometime in 2009. Maybe that's why they delayed the release of the DVD of season one - wanting it out just as the second season begins.
Don't miss this show; it's one for the ages, and I have a sense that it will become the humongous hit it deserves (I guess it was a moderate hit when first aired)when more people see the second season.
