Alias Grace part 1 review: Who is Grace Marks?
Grace Marks is many things in the Netflix adaptation of Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood. But is she actually a vicious murderer?
Given the runaway success of Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s hard to not make parallels with Netflix’s Alias Grace. Both series are adaptations of novels by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. Both feature female leads, both of whom are silenced by oppressive and misogynistic societies. Grace Marks can even be seen wearing bonnets that, for all of their historical accuracy, inevitably reminds you of the giant white head coverings forced upon the Handmaids.
Yet, despite the easy parallels, there are just as many important distinctions. As much as The Handmaid’s Tale can feel like a prophecy, it has not (and may never) come to pass. Grace Marks, however, was a real woman. She was convicted of the 1843 murder of her employer and housekeeper in a performative trial. However, her death sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Grace was eventually pardoned and left Canada.
Atwood’s novel is heavily fictionalized. How could it not be, when Grace Marks left behind no known diaries, no memoirs, no letters to family or friends? We have no photos of Grace and only one sketch of her. All that really remains are the many different depictions of the infamous woman.
Dubious fame
In an era where the majority of women-led small, obscure lives, Grace achieved a dubious immortality. At the very least, the specter of “Grace Marks, murderess” was worth at least a few newspaper articles.
While this miniseries adaptation of her work doesn’t have the flash and bang of The Handmaid’s Tale, it is just as moving and unsettling. Alias Grace asks you to take a more reserved, cerebral tack when watching. That’s thanks in large part to writer Sarah Polley and director Mary Harron, who wrote and directed each episode in the series.
The first episode opens directly on Grace (Sarah Gadon). She’s silently playacting the different roles given to her, from dullard to innocent victim, to a seducer, to a violent murderess. “How can I be all these different things at once?” she wonders.
Gadon’s subtle, intense acting adds another layer of ambiguity to the proceedings. Her inner workings are only hinted at in small moments and complicated observations. The times when she bursts into emotion (such as during some of the jolting flashbacks) are made all the more striking for the silence that surrounds them.
“I’d rather be a murderess”
Grace’s voiceover continues as she’s escorted to the Governor’s house, where she’s both a maid and a spectacle for genteel ladies. She muses on the difference between a “murderer” – a brutal, despised thing – and the more mysterious and seductive “murderess”. “I’d rather be a murderess than a murderer, if those are the only two choices,” she thinks.
But her inner monologue won’t sit alone for much longer, thanks to the arrival of Dr. Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft). He’s a budding psychologist tasked with writing a report on Grace. The contingent of people who think that she is innocent unabashedly push for Dr. Jordan to release a favorable opinion. One, a reverend, is played by famed Canadian director David Cronenberg in a subtle but proud bit of Canadian-ness.
Unfortunately for Dr. Jordan, Grace won’t play so easily. When they first meet at the penitentiary, he sits in the doorway to her cell and hands her an apple. When he asks Grace if it reminds her of anything, she flashes back to a mysterious game – but then says she can only think of innocuous apple pie.
Throughout their interview, she seems helplessly bound to recall all the terror in her life. She’s harrowed by it, frankly, but gives no quarter to Dr. Jordan. The Doctor seems unaware of Grace’s deception.
“I think he wishes to say to himself, I stuck in my thumb and pulled out a plum,” Grace later thinks. “But I will not be anybody’s plum”.
Subterfuge
In fact, Grace appears far more intelligent than most people think. It’s only that she’s been kept forcibly silent for most of her life. “It’s difficult for me to begin talking,” she confesses to Dr. Jordan. “I’ve not talked within the past fifteen years. I don’t know what you want me to say”.
Yet, Grace knows that she holds sway over people, and over this young doctor in particular. In one small moment, she mentions that he could open a window. He does almost immediately and, while his back is turned, Grace allows herself a small smile. What, exactly, that smile means is left to the viewer.
For all of her equivocation, however, Dr. Jordan at least gets Grace to recall her journey to Canada. It’s remarkably grim and unrelenting. Grace says that her Protestant family fled Catholic-led violence in the North of Ireland. The Marks family was deep in poverty, made all the worse by Grace’s drunken, abusive father.
The Atlantic passage sets the pace for other trauma that will unfold in Grace’s life. Grace, her siblings, and mother are crammed into the hold of the ship while her carousing father disappears. During one storm, waves wash down belowdecks while people cough and wail. Then, Grace’s mother dies. Grace only learns of this when she wakes next to her mother’s cold, lifeless body.
Another woman attempts to comfort the young girl but then says that they should have had an open window. “She’s trapped because we couldn’t open a window,” Grace later sobs. She’s clearly haunted by the thought of her mother’s spirit forever stuck in the filthy, sodden hold of the ship.
Grace in Canada
Toronto is no kinder to Grace. Her father not only remains violent but begins to make sexual advances towards his young daughter. There’s no humanity to him, with the short time given to Grace’s father. He comes across as more of a stock villain than anything else. It’s one of the few times Alias Grace stumbles in its first entry.
Grace, meanwhile, grapples with brief but violent urges. In Ireland, she had briefly thought of tossing two of her siblings overboard, so that there would be fewer mouths to feed. Now, in Canada, she considers killing her own father with a cooking pot. Only her fear of sin and the anger growing within her stop Grace.
Soon after, she’s sent to an upper-class household to work as a maid. It’s there that she meets the funny, vivacious Mary Whitney. Mary is also a fiery supporter of the 1837-1838 rebellions, though she keeps her mouth shut while at work.
“You’re bright as a new penny, Grace Marks,” says Mary. She may very well be the first person to treat Grace with warmth and kindness.
The power of words
But then we are back in the 1850s, and Grace wants to end the interview. Later, in her dark cell, she ponders the weight and meaning of language. During the trial, her words were “burnt onto paper” as she spoke them, with no chance of taking anything back. Everything was “twisted around” and forced into whatever shape the writer or reader wanted.
Now, however, her words are different. Her words are powerful. She feels “as if everything I say is right”. Below this dreaminess, however, she claims to be “wide-eyed awake and watchful”. And beneath that, Grace describes a kind of rawness, of being almost pleasurably torn open. She feels that she could be like a ripe peach, “splitting of its own accord”, but always with a hard stone at its center.
Poor Grace, stuck in a series of prisons and with no outlet for this sudden rush of sensuality. Yet it’s perfectly in line with the tone of the series. A mannered and suppressed Victorian exterior hides the brutal instincts of all humans.
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So, who is Grace Marks? Can she ever be her own creature, or is she now only whomever the people want her to be? Is there a “true” Grace? Was there ever? Don’t expect any straightforward answers. Even Atwood herself can’t commit to a verdict.
Still, there’s much to uncover in the next five episodes, both about Grace and the messy, frightening world around her. Gadon is striking in the title role, and Harron’s direction allows the first episode to skirt just around the edge of the violence and other unsavory urges that run beneath it all. It’s beautifully reserved and more than enough excuse to jump right into the second episode.