Shantaram: review of the Apple TV + series

A modest series with Charlie Hunnam and Shubham in the cast.

Shantaram is a series, taken from a long sellerof twelve episodes of almost an hour each: a very long time for a story in itself dense that never seems to extricate itself.

The adaptation of the spiritualistic epic novel by Gregory David Roberts, after tortuous production and realization vicissitudes, it has finally come to light. But the result is, beyond the sparkle and the surface heat, very modest and resembles its protagonist: a muscular dude and planed that every now and then sinks into reflections pseudophilosophical dragging with it, if it does not give up first, the bored spectator.

Shantaram: odyssey of a “cursed” adaptation

Of Shantaram, autobiographical novel from the epic breath written by Gregory David Robertshe fell in love immediately, already in the year of its publication – 2003 -, Johnny Deppwho bought the rights in 2008. Of the film he wanted to make, as producer and actor, nothing was known for a long time until Depp, in the autumn of 2015, took up the project again and decides to hire Joel Edgerton in the role that, originally, he would have desired for himself, that of the protagonist. This time too it does not end well and, only after many vicissitudes that, for the sake of synthesis, we do not retrace, Anonymous Content And Paramount Television Studios they take charge of commissioning an additional script and forming a new cast.

Filming that in the original project should have started in 2008 begins exactly ten years laterin the unprecedented features no more than a feature film, but a series with a total duration of a dozen hours, a time probably considered appropriate to translate from the book to the screen 1200 pages of the novel. However, even once the film making machine has started, it doesn’t get any better, and indeed here comes the monsoons – the story is set in India, where the set was allocated accordingly -, the pandemic and a pressing series of other more or less serious setbacks. Judging from the result, perhaps it would have been appropriate to read the tragicomic sequence of unexpected events in prophetic terms, as a sign of future disaster.

Shantaram: the painful matter that the book deals with stiffens and cools too much

Shantaramin fact, the economic and creative efforts made do not seem to be worth it. It roughly follows the dictation of the book, even in the receding of the plot in brutal twists backwards, in the violent and hallucinated use of flashback: The protagonist, an Australian former heroin addict and bank robberwith a past of pain and loss that is not easy to accept, he tries to redeem himself in Indiabut his intention to start over is hampered by new misadventures and a new love not without challenging and tiring aspects.

The story, in itself full of narrative stratifications and existentialist implications, in its translation for the small screen ends up compacting and stiffening on an excessively crass photographic and narratological aestheticplastic but not ductile, which, like a dog resembles its master, mirrors the smooth appearance of Charlie Hunnamblond muzzle all muscles and mane, yet devoid of authentic thickness and nevertheless of expressive subtlety.

At the altar of the sumptuous image and action robotics, the authors sacrificed everything: rhythmic, excavation, breath, emotional power, intellectual lash. The spirituality of the source text is reduced to secondary spiritualismthe transformative suffering with a philosophical convolution, with the effects of a rattling blather, among other things not very cohesive with the spy subplot and the adrenaline jolt of daring tugs.

As already Pachinko – The Korean wifeanother blockbuster series distributed by Apple TV +, too Shantaram is a visually sumptuous fanfare, but, if you go to prune, the writing is thin. Compared to the aforementioned title, the latter however represents an important step backwards, a haemorrhage of resources that, frankly, cannot be explained by any artistic, reflective or sapiential urgency that may be.