John Adams (2008)

John Adams (2008)

Directed by: Tom Hooper

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Stephen Dillane

So apparently I review short film anthologies and miniseries and all sorts of weird shit on this site now. I’m still not entirely sure about some of this stuff, but if I did Berlin Alexanderplatz, a mere eight hour miniseries is nothing. NOTHING, I SAY.

John Adams is, coincidentally, about the life of American revolutionary and second president John Adams. He climbs his way through the various political positions, from lawyer to ambassador to vice president to president, and eventually dies. A bunch of stuff happens in between, but I’m not a damn encyclopedia.

You pretty much have to be REALLY interested in the life of John Adams to even consider watching this miniseries, because I can’t imagine anyone else enjoying really anything about it. It’s very long, it’s dull, and it’s chock full of lame revisionist propaganda. I really would not have been surprised if there was a point where they were talking about the Germans and Thomas Jefferson said “boy, by the look of those guys, you’d think they’d want to start some sort of WORLD WAR TWO or something!” Laura Linney was good as John’s wife, Abagail, but Giamatti constantly looked uncomfortable, possibly because of the wigs he had to keep wearing. Or maybe John Adams was just always really unhappy about everything, which is kinda the moral I took from the story.