Netflix’s Lord Of The Flies Is The Best Survival Thriller Of The Year
The child survival story that started it all.
In recent years, there’s been a trend of TV shows following a group of teens as they cope with surviving and rebuilding a society in the wilderness without any adults around. First, there was The 100. Then, The Society. Next, The Wilds. Finally, Yellowjackets, which is now filming its fourth and final season.
Each of these shows shares one thing in common: roots in Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s 1954 novel about young British schoolchildren who wash up on a deserted island and try to survive while vying for power. But despite the book’s massive cultural influence, it’s never been adapted to TV before. Now, one of the minds behind Netflix’s latest hit drama has taken this story and elevated it to a polished, stylized miniseries that only underlines the story’s initial allegory.
Lord of the Flies was developed and written by Jack Thorne, the mind behind Adolescence, the single-shot miniseries that became one of Netflix’s most acclaimed shows. Once again, he returns to the subject of the young male mind with this story of dozens of British schoolboys on a strange island. Each of its four episodes focuses on a single survivor, beginning with Nicholas (David McKenna), who everyone calls Piggy. Piggy is the intellectual of the group, and the first survivor he meets is Ralph (Winston Sawyers). Together, they use a conch to summon the rest of the boys, and they all elect Ralph as leader. But over the course of their survival, their attempt at a power hierarchy falls apart, leading to chaos and even murder.
From the very first episode, it is clear that this adaptation isn’t afraid to get a little creative. As we see the boys gather on the beach, we keep cutting to extreme close-ups of their faces, almost as a direct introduction. Director Mark Munden is one of the UK’s greatest television directors, with a resume ranging from cult hit Utopia to Park Chan-wook’s The Sympathizer, and he uses every tool in his toolbox with this show, making it a gorgeous portrait of childlike energy and lush landscape.
Also firing on all cylinders is composer Hans Zimmer, who moves away from his grand orchestral cinematic scores with a more instrumental soundtrack that feels as lively as a horde of tweens hunting down a pig. Since many of the boys on the island belong to a choir, there’s also an ingenious use of choral music that makes the events feel almost mythical, apt for a story that originally was an allegory for British colonialism.
The direction, score, and performances by the young actors in this series really make it shine.
These kinds of shows usually depend greatly on the casting, as young actors are usually difficult to find, but this show hits that element out of the park. David McKenna is set to star in Netflix’s upcoming Chronicles of Narnia movie, and his performance as Piggy is the best endorsement the new movie has had yet. Lox Pratt is another breakout as the villainous, blond Jack, a role he should get used to as he’s set to spend the next couple of years playing villainous, blond Draco Malfoy in HBO’s Harry Potter series.
The only drawback I experienced while watching these four episodes was knowing that the young boys I had grown to care for over just a few hours would eventually turn on each other with deadly consequences. But that just makes those eventual moments all the more devastating. It doesn’t matter if you read this book in middle school or never got around to it — this quick miniseries will draw you in like a fly to a severed pig’s head.
