Critic’s perspective · attributed review digest
Lacy Baugher’s RogerEbert.com review considers Florence Pugh’s performance the key strength of Netflix’s East of Eden. She argues that Zoe Kazan’s adaptation adds context to Cathy Ames without simply recasting a difficult literary figure as a heroine.
Baugher also identifies a cost to that focus: some other characters feel less developed, and the series does not always do equal justice to its wider moral themes. Even with those reservations, she finds Pugh’s work and the attention to Cathy’s perspective satisfying. The seven-part adaptation is therefore assessed through both its performance and its choices about emphasis. This is Soundwave’s digest of Baugher’s published review, linked in full below.
Read the original review by Lacy Baugher at RogerEbert.com.
East of Eden promotional image courtesy of Netflix.
