From John Doyle of The Globe and Mail:
Link: Alias Grace: An ambitious, almost brilliant Margaret Atwood adaptation
Alias Grace (Monday, CBC, 9 p.m.) is tightly wound, stark and knowing about its central female protagonist. It is a very literary and at times elliptical adaptation, one that soars when it reaches into the elusive soul of Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon) and at times the six-part series hits you like a headache, it is so charged and sententious. It is sometimes gloriously exciting as Grace is revealed in oh-so-many twisted ways and, simultaneously, it suffers from the great curse of Canadian TV drama – it becomes visually inert when imaginative vigour and freshness of expression are called for. Continue reading.
From Victoria Ahearn of The Canadian Press:
Link: Alias Grace comes at a ‘critical moment,’ says star Sarah Gadon
Sarah Polley’s new TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel “Alias Grace” has been about 20 years in the making.
As it turns out, the timing couldn’t be more perfect.
Debuting Monday on CBC-TV and Nov. 3 on Netflix globally outside of Canada, the Ontario-shot miniseries comes after the smash success of another recent adaptation of Atwood’s work, eight-time Emmy winner “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Continue reading.
From Sonia Saraiya of Variety
Link: TV Review: Netflix’s ‘Alias Grace’Â
For a book that is essentially un-adaptable, though, “Alias Grace†presents a remarkably faithful and dazzlingly complex portrait of servant girl Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), a real-life “celebrated murderess†who was found guilty and imprisoned, at 16, for the killing of her master and mistress. Continue reading.Â
From Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter:
Link: ’Alias Grace’: TV Review
Polley and Harron (and Atwood’s source material) represent a powerful and thoroughly in-synch writing-directing team, spinning six episodes of television out of a story that is, on its surface, barely a film’s worth of plot. Continue reading.Â
From Courtney Shea of Toronto Life:
Link: Q&A: Sarah Gadon, the star of CBC’s new Atwood adaptation, Alias Grace
My agent sent me the script. When I saw it was a Sarah Polley project, I flipped out. Growing up in Toronto, I had always looked up to her as an actress, and I’ve watched her evolve into a director, producer and writer. I’ve always carried around a secret dream that maybe one day I might get to work with her.  Continue reading.Â
From Hermione Wilson of The TV Junkies:
Link: Alias Grace: Why You’ll Want to Catch Margaret Atwood’s True Crime Novel as it Comes to TV
f Making a Murderer had you hooked, and the first season of Serial made you wish you could read Adnan Syed’s mind, you’ll love Alias Grace! This latest TV adaptation of a Margaret Atwood novel (following close on the heels of the Emmy-winning The Handmaid’s Tale) is based on the true story of Canadian murderess — allegedly — Grace Marks, an Irish-Canadian maid who was convicted in 1843 of murdering her master Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery.  Continue reading.
