Midnight Mass (Mike Flanagan, 2021)

[thirtyframesasecond]

I'm halfway through Mike Flanagan's 'Midnight Mass' (Netflix) - a new priest shows up at a small town community (and the mid-point, you really know the direction its going in).

[Dr Amicus]

I'm three episodes in so far and really impressed - it feels like the best Stephen King he never wrote. I really liked Flanagan's first Haunting series (until the last 15 mins or so), but found the second very patchy (strong in the middle, weaker at the edges) - so far this might be my favourite. It's a slow burn but interestingly so - we watched the three episodes in one go and it did not feel like a chore.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I'm three episodes in so far and really impressed - it feels like the best Stephen King he never wrote. I really liked Flanagan's first Haunting series (until the last 15 mins or so), but found the second very patchy (strong in the middle, weaker at the edges) - so far this might be my favourite. It's a slow burn but interestingly so - we watched the three episodes in one go and it did not feel like a chore.

Glad you're enjoying it. Ah, so you're at a pivotal stage in the plot. It's certainly been the best thing I've seen as a longer series for some time. I've not seen Flanagan's King adaptations, but you're right, it would very easily be one of his works - it has a lot in common with

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Salem's Lot

. Great performances across the board, but Hamish Linklater as Father Paul is superb.

[brundlefly]

Linklater is excellent. Never knew I could enjoy, much less stand, Ray Romano doing a Jeff Goldblum impression for seven hours. This is a television project that talks so much – SO MUCH so much – that he who talks best and most convincingly will win and win you over. It’s almost a spoiler that he’s so good.

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…because the show’s single effective fake-out is that it’s about Riley Flynn’s addiction and his redemption. (That arc’s there, of course, but Flanagan’s so wanting for surprises that two episodes end on Riley’s early death/destruction. It’s impressive Flanagan makes both work! There’s genuine tension in that rowboat.) I’m glad it’s the Father’s story, though it’s fraught with silly contortions – he’s a Father who’s really a Monsignor who, in an unnecessary late-game reveal also turns out to be a father! – and old-age make-up so unfortunate it is itself a spoiler and an almost fatal plothole only blind faith can cure. (We’ll pretend that no one on the island recognizes Father Paul’s features or his sermon style because he both he and Mildred Gunning are the oldest people on the island by at least fifty years. The “surprise” reveal hinges on everyone on the island having that blind spot while the audience knows it’s him almost immediately. Maybe people on the island just talk so much that the oxygen doesn’t get to their brains, or something. But what’s a leap of faith if not a suspension of disbelief?)

I’m glad it’s his story because it’s a more interesting path than the well-worn vampire/substance addiction metaphor. And also glad the cult story is not one hinging on a domineering, corrupt leader. Such a huge positive that every step the Father consciously takes comes from a place of good intention, and that what’s suggested here as an addiction to faith has an agent not cut from the usual dismissive, cartoonish cloth. Flanagan obviously takes matters of faith seriously and faith obviously matters to him, which is why...

I’m not mad about all the talking. Linklater’s confidently but actively finding his way through not just his sermons, but every one of his speeches. Some of the best times I spent on this island were at its AA meetings – something I don’t think I’ve ever said before –because they were built capably on earnestness and understanding and, of course, the drama of recruitment. Father Paul’s charismatic and smart and seductively attentive and it’s understandable his form of communication would come to define the whole project.

People give very long speeches at each other, that’s the bulk of the show. It’s not pure monologue, it can be substantive grown-up exchange, huge chunks at a time. Sometimes, sure, Character B’s just waiting through Character A’s three-page speech so they can give their three-page speech. Quite often it feels like someone says, “Hey, what time is it?” and the other person in the room answers with five pages of their backstory in a single take while the camera slowly pushes in. (If the alternative is terrible staging like that endless, klutzy 360 on Dead Cat Beach, I’ll take it.) It’s a legitimate form, and actors love monologues, and Flanagan likes his actors and also likes his own words enough to erect seven hours of show on them. Show-Don’t-Tell can find some other port.

But obviously I’m not mad for all the talking. Maybe if we pump Bev Keane full of enough hot air, one of Stephen King’s standard-issue 2D religious zealots will gain a third dimension. Maybe if enough characters keep describing their dreams we’ll forget to ask why no one knows how to use the Internet.

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I came to resent the choice that the undead could talk, because “You’re dead now, so shut up” is such good advice. I came to think of the angel as my favorite character because it was willing to go suck in silence. When Flanagan gave his wife one final internal monologue revising a previous monologue I was finally fully convinced of the existence of Hell.

I sympathize with the need to meet words with words – this is that – and I know Flanagan’s projects aren’t all like this. I keep letting myself get talked into giving his work a chance, and it’s usually better than it has to be. Sometimes worthwhile. But never really great. Too often during Midnight Mass I found myself outside it, accepting its form, contemplating the fast-forward button, and wondering where my courage and wisdom had gone.

[jazzo]

Brundlely, you've articulated my own feelings about the show much better than I could.

In spite of the couple of issues I have with his work, I do count myself as a rather larger Mike Flanagan fan (not counting, of course, the disastrous baton pass of The Haunting of Bly Manor to his stable of co-creators), because, as someone who once wanted to make films for a living, I can't help but admire the ambition he has (and which I clearly lacked to succeed in the industry), evident even back in Absentia, and the mature level of craft he brings to and elevates genre with.

And while MIDNIGHT MASS, in many ways, contains some of his most mature writing and directing, some of his worst indulgences are right there with them, and over a seven hour period, the indulgences tend to overwhelm. There's an affectation to the dialogue (which, as you pointed out, are really monologues), that creates an artificiality around the scenes, and that removes you as a viewer. There were many times during the seven episodes I sat there, both, loving what I was seeing, and wishing it would just fucking end already. Or at least deviate from the character delivery pattern.

All of the actors are very good, with knock-out work from Hamish Linklater, Rahul Kohli, Robert Longstreet, Zach Gilford and Annabeth Gish.

Katie Siegel was fine, but I think it may be time for him to stop Egoyaning, and casting his wife in things. I'm glad they love working together but, to me, she is consistently the weakest link in his works, and I can't help but wonder if I would be more engaged by her character(s) if there was a different actress delivering those lines.

But even though Midnight Mass is just

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his reimagining of King's Salem's Lot

it creates a juicy atmosphere of dread, and it ends on a very emotionally satisfying grace note.

So, I guess in the end, I loved it still, even though I also slightly hated it. Go figure.

[cdnchris]

What I liked most about this was how it seemed to deal with blind faith

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It's never flat out acknowledged by anyone they're dealing with vampires, even though it's clear, early on, that is what's going on. Some characters seem to know this is what is happening, but it's never said (as far as I can remember, outside of one character saying it's a type of virus) and it seems most everyone still thinks, right up to the end, they're dealing with angels and God, because they just couldn't be wrong about their beliefs, suffering the consequences.

Also: poor Howie.

I liked Flanagan's other series but sometimes they felt like they were packing in too much and could feel scattered and unfocused. This one, despite being the most obviously Stephen King inspired work of his not directly adapted from one of his books, manages to avoid that, keeping the story fairly simple in the end.

And yes, Linklater was great.

[jazzo]

I agree, he tackles the believer/non-believer spectrum very astutely, allowing for a mature dialogue about the exploration of faith (or lack thereof) from both sides. Great observation cdnchris.

Given the amount of material that he's written and directed in the last decade, I would argue that Michael Flanagan may even deserve his own forum thread as, dare I say it, a filmmaker. He definitely has a voice.

[brundlefly]

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It's never flat out acknowledged by anyone they're dealing with vampires, even though it's clear, early on, that is what's going on. Some characters seem to know this is what is happening, but it's never said (as far as I can remember, outside of one character saying it's a type of virus) and it seems most everyone still thinks, right up to the end, they're dealing with angels and God, because they just couldn't be wrong about their beliefs, suffering the consequences.

I liked this choice as well, but it does have its consequences.

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The idea that "vampires" aren't a known thing in this world is fine, and on top of that I loved the fact they never found a way to kill them outside of sunlight -- clearly God's light, not representative of any kind of knowledge, because no one in the community seems to have any about much of anything. The viewer's already so far ahead of the simple story that denyng its denizens traditional vampire lore sets them even further behind. (Every time someone took a deep breath before starting one of their endless speeches about Hungarians washing their hands or whatever, I found it impossible not to blurt at the television, "Say, have you guys ever seen Dracula?" Riley has an X-Files poster hanging in his room, but maybe he (or this reality) missed that episode. I'm fine with all that, but this is a town with a doctor who repeatedly draws blood from her mom and doesn't analyze it, just keeps watching it burst into flames over and over like some stoned teenager, and a hero -- who worked with tech start-ups! -- making a calculated presentation with inflammatory evidence and without thinking to tell his audience to maybe take out her phone and record that part. Certainly thematically whole to make religion the only thing anyone cares about, bless their hearts, but the upshot for me was that it wasn't the oil spill that drove all the other islanders away. They left in search of smarter neighbors.

[Persona]

One of the best Stephen King movies or shows not based on an actual Stephen King book.

Shares so much with King in terms of great strengths and great weaknesses but, like some of King's better work, the strengths manage to outweigh the significant weaknesses. It's overwritten but the central conceit is a bit of brilliant, both in conception and in how it is dramatically and visually elaborated upon as the show progresses, and the characters and setting are well realized. It says something that I can have a lot of very conflicted feelings about it but still say that it pretty easily is the best new series I have seen this year.