Local film and TV production is proving a great shot in the arm for the mid-Hudson economy, but often also imposes a considerable amount of inconvenience. For several weeks in the summer of 2019, there was barely a parking space to be found for residents of the City of Kingston’s Rondout district – especially surrounding the Wurts Street Bridge, which connects Kingston with the Esopus hamlet of Connelly. Production buses lined up nose-to-tail gobbled up on-street parking for blocks around, and jammed the parking lots of the waterfront neighborhood’s churches.
The bridge was the focal point for a dramatic sequence – including helicopter shots – in The Undoing, a miniseries starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant that has finally premiered on HBO, following extended delays on account of Covid-19. This production also involved temporary closure of Route 209, and some green-screen scenes requiring more than 250 crew at TechCity.
Susanne Bier directed the show, and the screenwriter is David E. Kelley, an eleven-time Emmy-winner has included hit series such as LA Law, Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal and Big Little Lies. Based on a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz titled You Should Have Known, the production’s a crime thriller about a family living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Son Henry attends a pricey private school, dad Jonathan (Grant) is a pediatric oncologist, and mom Grace (Kidman) is a high-ticket psychotherapist. They seem to be leading a perfect upscale existence … until the mother of another student at the school turns up murdered. Jonathan fails to return from a medical conference he was supposedly attending, and soon becomes the prime suspect in the killing.
Grace is the central character, and much irony is derived from the fact that her psychiatric practice makes liberal use of the argument that women habitually blind themselves to the big red flags that drape their husbands and lovers. In her own mind, she’s above all that – until she finds out that her own mate isn’t quite the man she thought he was.
Grant is perfectly cast, putting a sardonic spin on his trademark boyish charm to portray a seemingly adoring husband who may or may not actually be a killer. Kidman executive-produced this show as a vehicle to showcase her own onscreen strengths, and she’s quite convincing as a slightly smug one-percenter whose fairytale existence is suddenly shattered.
Donald Sutherland is reliably excellent as Grace’s concerned father, and Lily Rabe (daughter of Jill Clayburgh and David Rabe) is a scene-stealer as her best friend. Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramírez, whose big breakout role was starring as Gianni Versace in the 2018 season of American Crime Story, portrays the detective who upends Grace’s world. Level-headed Henry, who keeps trying to talk sense to his rattled mother, is played by Noah Jupe, a young actor already familiar to local moviegoers via his role as a kid hiding from sound-sensitive alien monsters in A Quiet Place, shot in 2017 in Pawling, Beacon and New Paltz.
As of this writing, only the first two episodes of The Undoing have been released, their action transpiring almost entirely in Manhattan. Audiences don’t know yet what crucial scene unfolds on the Wurts Street Bridge (which is, as it happens, currently closed for repairs) unless they’ve read the book. The pleasures of hometown location-spotting are yet to unfold.
But other joys are to already be found in the viewing: solid acting all around; a witty script well-salted with wry jokes at the expense of the most privileged New Yorkers; outstanding cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle that optimizes the visual potential of a place where artificial lighting dances elegantly off hard, shiny surfaces of towers as fanciful as Oz. It’ll be interesting to see what this artist makes of the more organic shapes and colors of Ulster County.
Episode 2 ended with Grace and Henry fleeing New York City and the publicity surrounding the murder. Watchers of the series should soon be seeing familiar streets in Kingston, the Town of Ulster, and Esopus. The third episode of six airs on HBO this Sunday, November 8.
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