by Deborah Lipp
Station Eleven is a ten-episode mini-series that you may have avoided up until now, since it is largely about a pandemic. A lot of my friends tell me they can’t stand the idea. But bite the bullet and give it a try. In the world of Station Eleven (based on a novel written in 2014—long before COVID), a virulent flu wipes out 99% of humanity. It all happens in a week, so their pandemic is much less boring than ours...
The primary action takes place twenty years after the pandemic, although we spend a significant amount of time before and during the pandemic as well (event time is clearly labeled on-screen—they’re not messing with our heads with tricked-out time-jumps).
Most post-apocalyptic media is gloomy with a capital GLOOM. I approached Station Eleven with trepidation—fearing The Walking Dead without zombies. In the lawless world following the rapid destruction of civilization, there are certainly violent gangs and things to fear, but our main characters exhibit kindness and decency as an inherent part of their will to survive.
We follow Kirsten (Mackenzie Davis), part of “the Traveling Symphony,” a troupe of musicians and Shakespearean actors who, in “Year Twenty,” travel a circuit of small communities. We also follow Kirsten as a child (Matilda Lawler), and her companionship with Jeevan (Himesh Patel) in the first year of the pandemic. Interconnecting past and present, and many of the characters, is a mysterious graphic novel called “Station Eleven,” created by Miranda Carroll (Danielle Deadwyler).
Station Eleven is gently, and beautifully, asking some big questions. When everything is gone, what’s left? What matters? What’s worth rebuilding? The very existence the Traveling Symphony tells us that the ability to make art is front and center. Theater is worth rebuilding, and music, and creativity. Relationships matter—romance in this world is very nonchalant, but the ability of one human being to look another in the eye is not; it is paramount.
Station Eleven itself is a symphony, and just about every note is perfect. The world-building is a thing of jaw-dropping beauty. The costumes and production design are exquisite. The cast is outstanding. I am not completely enamored of lead actor Mackenzie Davis, but she’s doing fine work. Everything in her body language is “I am still the 9-year-old who lost everything.” Lori Petty, as the symphony’s conductor and mentor, is a joy as usual. But most of these miraculous actors are relatively unknown. Danielle Deadwyler gives me the PLEASE BE IN EVERYTHING feels. I’d only previously seen Himesh Patel in Yesterday but here I understand why he is becoming a star.
Lori Petty as "The Conductor"
I don’t know why so many artists think depressing times call for depressing art. In the Great Depression, they had frothy musicals and screwball comedies. That was a good idea. Hope is a good idea. Station Eleven agrees. It is too beautiful to watch through just once, so I am starting over again.
Station Eleven is now streaming on HBOMax