HBO Series : I Know This Much Is True” Dark, painful and great.
Based on the bestselling and highly acclaimed 1998 novel by Wally Lamb, the limited series follows Dominick Birdsey, as he struggles to care for his troubled twin brother, Thomas, while discovering the truth about his own family history. Ruffalo appears in the double-role of the identical twin brothers, in an extraordinary story of betrayal, sacrifice and forgiveness. The series explores the vastly different lives the twins have lived, throughout the different stages of their lives. Ruffalo is joined on screen by an outstanding ensemble cast: Academy Award-winner Melissa Leo as the twins’ mother; Emmy Award-winner Archie Punjabi as Thomas’ new psychologist and Rosie O’Donnell as a social worker at the forensic institute where Thomas is staying. Rounding out the cast are esteemed actors Kathryn Hahn, Imogen Poots and Juliette Lewis.
The series features Mark Ruffalo in dual roles, playing twins Dominick and Thomas Birdsey. Tom is schizophrenic, and when we meet him he’s having an episode in a public library, trying to cut off one of his hands. Dominick is an even-tempered everyman, but carrying the burden of his brother’s illness and, it seems, the weight of the world. We go back to their childhood and see both brothers terrified of their stepfather, a man drenched in male toxicity, and clinging to their mother (Melissa Leo) for nurturing.
The storyline is entirely balanced on emotion; it seems this family is cursed by something in their history, some tendency toward self-destruction. As the mother figure is dying of cancer she gives Tom the manuscript of her father’s self-declared life story. It’s written in Italian and Tom takes it to a PhD candidate, Nedra (Juliette Lewis) who promises to translate it. It is a scene between Ruffalo and Lewis that kick-started that “Emmy nomination” thought. There is something in the family history, perhaps locked in that manuscript, which might shed light on the darkness that engulfs this family.
Know This Much Is True understands a crucial lesson show many shows – especially shows about tortured straight white men – don’t. That’s that you cannot treat the other people in your main character’s life as props. Other people do not exist merely to propel our hero forward. They’re people in their own right, with their own sense of humanity and their own worries, fears, and loves.
