Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s 1954 novel about barbarism among British schoolboys, has been adapted into a feature film on three separate occasions: with the 1963 movie directed by Peter Brooks; the Filipino version, “Alkitrang Dugo,” released in 1975; and the 1990s Americanized take.
But it’s taken more than 70 years for this cornerstone of every high school English curriculum to be adapted into a television series, a form perhaps best suited to depicting the progression of the preteen characters’ descent into savagery. Because time truly is a flat circle, it’s challenging to watch “Lord of the Flies,” a BBC production debuting May 4 on Netflix, without partly seeing it through the lens of other shows influenced by Golding’s book, particularly “Lost” and “Yellowjackets,” the Showtime series directly inspired by the concept of an all-female Lord of the Flies. But writer Jack Thorne, author of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” and co-creator of Netflix’s “Adolescence,” and director Marc Munden (“The Sympathizer”) smartly lean into the expectations viewers now bring to any show about a group of people stranded on a deserted island following a plane crash, or, for that matter, just on an island in general.
It helps that the original text already lends itself to creating an air of mystery. As in the book, nothing in the Netflix drama ever outright says what year the story takes place. The source material alludes more directly to a global war, something Thorne merely hints at through context clues. In Golding’s book, some of the boys become convinced there is a beast lurking in the jungle of this unnamed island. The same thing happens in the BBC edition, a detail that simultaneously plays as faithful to the novel and also reminiscent of “Lost’s” Smoke Monster.
Throughout the four episodes in this limited series, there’s a slippery tension between what’s real and what’s an illusion. Figures often show up in the distance, appearing in the farthest corner of a frame, so we can’t be sure at first whether they’re actual people or hallucinations. The foliage on the island glows in nearly neon shades of pink and orange, a consequence of filming with infrared cameras that enhances the sense of otherworldliness. (Those cameras came into play because so many night scenes had to be shot during the day to accommodate the child actors.) Several boys experience nightmares and dissociative moments that reflect their fragile mental states, but also, perhaps, that something more spiritually sinister exists on this isolated isle. “Don’t you feel it, Jack?” Simon asks his fellow crash survivor, also an on-again/off-again mate from boarding school. “When you’re in the forest, alone. Something behind you.”
The series is structured so that each episode unfolds from the perspective of one of the four principal characters: natural leader Ralph (Winston Sawyers), arrogant bully Jack (Lox Pratt), vulnerable loner Simon (Ike Talbut), and the smartest and most frequently teased of the group, Piggy (David McKenna). This approach enables Thorne to provide new information about their backstories — yes, as on “Lost” and “Yellowjackets,” there are flashbacks—and help us better understand, if not necessarily excuse, their behavior. In one important and illuminating deviation from the book, Simon’s diary gently suggests that he is queer and has romantic feelings for Jack, adding a fascinating layer to their mercurial relationship.
Even in its visual choices, “Lord of the Flies” insists that we study these young men. In the first episode, Munden carefully photographs every juvenile stranded on the island in tight close-ups that play like mug shots for the crimes they are about to commit. Casting directors Nina Gold (a recent Academy Award nominee for her work on “Hamnet”) and Martin Ware have done a superb job of putting together this ensemble of largely inexperienced actors, who, from the leads down to the lads whose names we never learn, come across as authentically and recognizably prepubescent. McKenna, who is simultaneously intelligent, a little annoying, and generous, is a particular stand-out as Piggy. So is Pratt, who finds vulnerability around the edges of a character whose main vibe is giving House of Slytherin. (Not surprisingly, Pratt has been cast as Draco Malfoy in HBO’s upcoming adaptation of the Harry Potter saga.)
As anyone with a vague recollection of Golding’s novel will recall, these fellows eventually channel their anxiety and aimlessness into violence that grows increasingly extreme. The series does not shy away from showing it, though it demonstrates appropriate restraint in one especially horrifying death scene.
But what distinguishes this “Lord of the Flies” is not how it handles its grand and bloody moments, but the way it pays close attention to smaller, equally rich details: the mosquito bites that pop out on the castaways’ arms; the ladies’ make-up, retrieved from leftover luggage, that Jack and his followers slather on their faces to simulate tribal paint; the images of scorpions scuttling through dirt or praying mantises rising up like those tube men who flail in the wind outside car dealerships. The creatures who reside in this environment, both the animals who were there first, and the humans who got flung there unexpectedly, are depicted with the same attention, another way that this “Lord of the Flies” reminds us that perhaps there isn’t that much difference between beasts and little boys after all.
All four episodes were screened for review.
