It is a series of powerful events that speak of Grace Marks, a poor immigrant, Irish young woman and domestic servant. Grace was convicted with James McDermott for the brutal murders committed by his employer, Thomas Kinnear. James was hanged while Grace was sentenced to life imprisonment and Grace became one of the most obscure and notorious women in Canada in the 1840s. It is a series of events that embody the reality of that story because of the supposed role of that woman in the double murder.
In most of the ways that matter, Netflix's Alias Grace presents an adaptation that delivers the gothic horror, social commentary, and domestic investigation of the novel.
Gadon is the engine that drives it and there is a stiffness to the six-part adaptation of the type which tends to bedevil a good deal of Canadian TV drama.
Sarah Gadon's exhilarating performance inhabits and subverts all the extreme adjectives thrown Grace's way, leaving you with a memorable character whose lingering unknowability is her greatest strength.
