Mike Flanagan makes us grapple with multiple truths to finally drive home a simple message

Nonika Singh

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Mystery of mysteries… Surrealism has been used as cinematic device to draw attention to a hard-hitting subject. However, rarely does it make such an impact as in The Fall of the House of Usher. Like the series Painkiller, it takes a look into the murky world of drug companies. The Usher family, owner of pharmaceutical company, is facing a trial for its highly addictive drug.

But this is no courtroom drama or a police procedural. In this reimagining of the short story of the same name and other works by Edgar Allan Poe, Mike Flanagan creates a contemporary riveting drama. The series unfolds like a thriller, flirting with horror if you will. It begins with the death of young members of the Usher family and a confession by its head, Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood).

As the eight-episode drama streaming on Netflix goes back and forth, we are led into a compelling maze. One by one we become privy to the life and death of Roderick’s children, both legitimate and illegitimate. There is Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota), who wants to set up a sex bar, Leo (Rahul Kohli), a video game publisher and a drug addict. Kate Siegel as Camille is the public relations head, T’Nia Miller as Victorine LaFourcade is in charge of clinical trials. Samantha Sloyan as Tamerlane is creating a high-end wellness brand. Most of them have twisted lives. Amoral and consumed by ambition…one after another they die. Their deaths apparently are accidental yet there is a pattern to it, probably connected to Roderick and his sister Madeline’s (Mary McDonnell) past. How the brother-sister duo rise to head the company their father once owned, while disowning his offspring born out of wedlock, too is shrouded in mystery. Much here is mysterious, often bordering on macabre. As Roderick lets Dupin (Carl Lumbly) into his inner world, the sense of disquiet heightens. Phantasmagorical elements jostle with the harsh reality of pharma secrets. Skeletons tumble one after another.

Abominability of human character is a recurring thread and sheer depravity of the Ushers is appalling. If the sex party of Prospero makes you flinch, the triggers to their brutal ends are no less shocking. Writing is sharp, pithy and has wicked humour. ‘Isn’t madness the loftiest intelligence?’ the bizarre acquires a sting. While, the series packs nudity, violence, it also has fabulous music (The Newton Brothers). Actors playing the Ushers bring out their fetishes without inhibition and with right degree of off-centre waywardness. The family is not without its moral compass. The real conscience in the series is this mysterious woman Verna (Carla Gugino). Who is she, a victim? At a subliminal level; is she maya or karma?

Flanagan makes us grapple with multiple truths to finally drive home a simple message. The biblical saying ‘sins of parents are visited upon their children’ is not uttered but its import and that of ‘what goes around comes around’ hits like a bolt. Madeline’s lines in the climax about consumerism pack a punch. Finally, in The Fall of The House of Usher we see the fall of humanity, anatomy of ambition with chilling clarity and as viewers, we get our slice of redemption too.