Try as I might to watch less television, Derek Cianfrance, Wally Lamb, and Ruffalo’s mini-series I Know This Much Is True has been too good to pass up. The series is based on Lamb’s novel of the same title about two Connecticut brothers and their shared family history and traumas. In the series adapted and directed by Cianfrance, Mark Ruffalo plays both brothers, the serious and volatile Dominick and his vulnerable and also mercurial paranoid schizophrenic brother Thomas. Dominick’s life as a forty year old man revolves around taking care of Thomas, who he both loves and resents. After Thomas cuts off his own hand in a public library in an act of intended religious sacrifice, he is transferred from his group home to a state forensic facility. The stress of where his bothered has landed causes Dominick to have to deal with his own issues rooted in his difficult relationships with his violent stepfather, played by John Procaccino, and the women in his life including his ex-wife (a very good Kathryn Hahn) and his current girlfriend (Imogen Poots).
The entire cast is uniformly strong in this grim yet humane drama, and the show so far (two episodes have been broadcast on HBO) feels plausible and raw. I’ve become tired of films and TV shows using the same performer and computer generated imagery to put identical twins onscreen especially because the stories are usually just about male twins (Ewan McGregor in season three of Fargo, Tom Hardy in Legend), but I Know This Much Is True uses its special effects in the service of a story for grownups. I can’t post a full review because the full season hasn’t aired yet, but I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this doesn’t end up being the television series of the year.
Aden Thomas Jordan 