Lord of the Flies (Netflix Miniseries)
Directed by Marc Munden
Newcomer ensemble, Riz Ahmed (narration)
“Jack Thorne adapted Lord of the Flies into four hours for Netflix and finally gave the book the room it deserves. The result is the best literary adaptation Netflix has produced in years.”
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The Review
Lord of the Flies has been adapted to film twice, both times by directors who treated the runtime as a constraint they had to fight. The 1963 version is faithful but airless. The 1990 version is largely forgotten. Jack Thorne's four-part miniseries treats the runtime as a feature and uses every minute. The result is the first adaptation that lets the slow corruption breathe at the pace Golding actually wrote it.
The casting of the boys is the production's most consequential decision and it pays off. Marc Munden directs with a documentary patience that lets the social structures break down on screen the way they break down in the book, which is gradually and then all at once. The conch matters. The fire matters. Piggy's glasses matter. The miniseries trusts the audience to track these symbols without diagramming them, which is the most respectful adaptation choice possible.
It is not flawless. The fourth episode pulls some punches the book does not pull, presumably because Netflix is still Netflix. The narration framing is occasionally heavy-handed. But the central achievement is intact. This is a Lord of the Flies that understands the book is a warning, not a coming of age story, and has the runtime to make the warning land. Schools will use this for the next twenty years.
What It Nails
- +Marc Munden directs with the kind of patience the source material has been waiting decades for
- +The young ensemble is uniformly excellent, with several breakout performances
- +Production design treats the island as a real place with weather and consequences
- +Pacing finally matches the book's gradual descent
- +Sound design uses silence more effectively than dialogue
What It Botches
- -Episode four softens the bleakest material from the novel
- -Narration framing occasionally tells you what you should be feeling
- -A few subplots invented for the runtime do not earn their existence
- -The score sometimes underlines moments that would be stronger silent
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Who It's For
Anyone who read the book in school and never quite forgot it. Fans of slow, deliberate prestige drama. Educators looking for a teaching companion that respects the text.
Who Should Skip
Viewers who need a fast plot. Anyone uncomfortable with violence involving children. People who only liked the book because they thought it was an adventure story.
Marketing Roast
Netflix is positioning this as prestige programming for adults, which is accurate and also a quiet admission that they need wins in the prestige category. The marketing is restrained because the source does not need help.
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