fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Submit Your Event
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Send Letter to the Editor
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Shot largely in Ulster County, The Undoing premieres on HBO

by Frances Marion Platt
November 18, 2020
in Stage & Screen
0
Shot largely in Ulster County, The Undoing premieres on HBO
On location in Kingston’s Rondout with HBO’s “The Undoing,” starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Donald Sutherland. (Hudson Valley Film Commission)

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.

Tags: members
Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Frances Marion Platt

Frances Marion Platt has been a feature writer (and copyeditor) for Ulster Publishing since 1994, under both her own name and the nom de plume Zhemyna Jurate. Her reporting beats include Gardiner and Rosendale, the arts and a bit of local history. In 2011 she took up Syd M’s mantle as film reviewer for Alm@nac Weekly, and she hopes to return to doing more of that as HV1 recovers from the shock of COVID-19. A Queens native, Platt moved to New Paltz in 1971 to earn a BA in English and minor in Linguistics at SUNY. Her first writing/editing gig was with the Ulster County Artist magazine. In the 1980s she was assistant editor of The Independent Film and Video Monthly for five years, attended Heartwood Owner/Builder School, designed and built a timberframe house in Gardiner. Her son Evan Pallor was born in 1995. Alternating with her journalism career, she spent many years doing development work – mainly grantwriting – for a variety of not-for-profit organizations, including six years at Scenic Hudson. She currently lives in Kingston.

Related Posts

You should finally cave and see a performance at Widow Jane Mine
Stage & Screen

You should finally cave and see a performance at Widow Jane Mine

July 11, 2025
Legendary Woodstocker will lead rare performance this Saturday
Stage & Screen

Legendary Woodstocker will lead rare performance this Saturday

June 27, 2025
Eugene Tyler Band comes to Rough Draft this Friday
Stage & Screen

Dance showcase in Kingston this weekend

June 26, 2025
Follow the yellow brick road to the Center for Performing Arts of Rhinebeck
Stage & Screen

Follow the yellow brick road to the Center for Performing Arts of Rhinebeck

June 5, 2025
Storytelling over jazz in Kingston this Saturday
Stage & Screen

Storytelling over jazz in Kingston this Saturday

May 30, 2025
Short films and songwriters join forces in Rosendale on Thursday
Stage & Screen

Short films and songwriters join forces in Rosendale on Thursday

May 28, 2025
Next Post
“A Season in Hell” group exhibit at the Green Kill Gallery

“A Season in Hell” group exhibit at the Green Kill Gallery

Weather

Kingston, NY
93°
Partly Cloudy
5:33 am8:30 pm EDT
Feels like: 102°F
Wind: 7mph S
Humidity: 47%
Pressure: 29.94"Hg
UV index: 7
ThuFriSat
93°F / 66°F
81°F / 57°F
86°F / 68°F
Kingston, NY 10 days weather forecast ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

×
We've expanded coverage and need your support. Subscribe now for unlimited access -- free article(s) remain for the month.
View Subscription Offers Sign In
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Art
    • Books
    • Kids
    • Lifestyle & Wellness
    • Food & Drink
    • Music
    • Nature
    • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review

© 2022 Ulster Publishing