Holding out for a hero

Winona Ryder and Oscar Isaac

It’s one of those glib clichés that people trot out about HBO. The novelistic nature of the network’s storytelling invariably has someone fall back on the old trope that if Dickens were alive today he’d be writing for The Wire or The Sopranos.

I think it makes more sense to accept that if the creator of The Wire, David Simon, had been born 200 years ago he’d be writing serial stories for magazines just as Dickens did.

Dickens and Simon are cut from the same cloth; Dickens the chronicler of the working class in Victorian England, Simon the chronicler of blue-collar America in the new millennium. Simon obviously did not grow up in the same privation as Dickens but he knows whereof he speaks and years spent as a Baltimore journalist working the crime beat have given him a unique insight into modern America.

His latest drama Show Me a Hero substitutes Yonkers in New York for Baltimore in The Wire and the much under-rated The Corner, or New Orleans in the, for me, slightly overpraised, Treme. But it is once again the perfect backdrop for Simon’s storytelling. My favourite run of shows on The Wire was probably the second half of series 3 and the whole of season 4; these were the programmes that explored the politics of Baltimore, especially the US school system which, in Simon’s world, is merely a supply line to provide soldiers for the drug barons.

This peculiarly local aspect of US politics is something that Simon returns to in Show Me a Hero, an eight-part series from HBO based on a true story. Most of Simon’s work is thinly fictionalised but this is based on real stories of real people. Set in the city of Yonkers in New York it deals with the city’s response to a court judgement to order public housing – usually inhabited by poor black people – in predominantly white, working class areas. The resulting furore almost split the city in two.

Simon is famously one of the new generation of ‘Difficult Men’ in TV terms and this is a difficult subject. On one side he looks at the lives of the people whose lot will be improved by the homes, on the other side there are various white protest groups, and in the middle is the local authority which has no option but to comply with the court order or the city will effectively be bankrupted.

Beleaguered Republic mayor Angelo Martinelli is under siege, his Democratic rivals put up a bright young candidate Nick Wasicsko as little more than a sacrificial lamb. However there is an opportunity to ride a wave of public ill-feeling right into the Mayor’s office which is exactly where we find Wasicsko at the end of the first episode.

There is a huge amount to admire in this show. Its low key narrative is not for the hard of thinking, the story is not handed to the audience on a plate. They need to work for it but the rewards are there in some beautifully drawn characterisation and some fine performances not least from Oscar Isaac as Wasicsko.

This is the latest in a remarkable 18-month run of performances from Isaac in films such as Inside LLewyn Davis, A Most Violent Year and Ex Machina. This is a trifecta which personally makes me think he is the most exciting American actor since Robert De Niro. There is no doubt that Isaac is the best of his generation and the first great screen actor of the 21^st century. With the work he already has. plus upcoming roles in the new Star Wars and X-Men films, he also seems able to move from mainstream to independent fare with commendable ease.

His performance in Show Me a Hero reminds me of two of De Niro’s great roles; Johnny Boy in Mean Streets and Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas. He has the drive of Johnny Boy and the smarts of Jimmy the Gent and it is an exciting combination.

This is a show that will confirm Isaac’s reputation but it also provides some opportunities as a career reviver. Watching James Belushi in a serious role in his middle years is a revelation, and the show also reminds us how much we have missed the glacial delicacy of Winona Ryder. Behind the camera too there is a chance for a career reviving turn from Paul Haggis whose career has been - to be kind - patchy in the ten years since his double Oscar success in Crash and Million Dollar Baby. Haggis brings a cinematic eye to proceedings and in sharing Simon’s working class ethos he paints an entirely convincing picture of life in a small American community at a time of great social upheaval.

In screenwriting terms the function of the hero is to lead the viewer through the story; everything we discover we discover through this character. So far Wacisko appears to be a perfect hero. The first episode ends with him having achieved his life’s ambition – it’s a small life, to be fair – but I suspect he will soon learn to be careful what you wish for in case you get it.