Watch Boys Go From Frightened to Feral in an Unforgettable ‘Lord of the Flies’

Since its publication in 1954, the William Golding novel Lord of the Flies has been one of the most popular books on many high school reading lists. It’s about a group of British schoolboys who survive a plane crash on a remote island, and are forced to figure out how to sustain themselves without any adult supervision.

Two movies have been made from the story, in 1963 and 1990. Now, Netflix and the BBC present the first adaptation for television. All four episodes of this new Lord of the Flies miniseries come from the same creative team, with Jack Thorne writing for television and Marc Munden directing.

Most of the show was filmed on location in the dense rainforest of Malaysia, and Munden makes the most of it, so the series looks great. More than that, though, this TV Lord of the Flies is such a faithful rendering of the book, and relies so much upon the acting and credibility of its fresh young cast, that Thorne deserves most of the credit for trusting the source material, and his cast, and writing such an unforgettable, sometimes haunting adaptation.

The most unforgettable TV drama I’ve seen in the past few years was another four-part Netflix/BBC offering, the Emmy-winning Adolescence. That was co-written by Thorne, and Lord of the Flies can be seen as sort of a companion piece.

Adolescence, about a young boy accused of murdering a classmate, was a stark, emotional look at how social media can lead some young people towards hateful, even violent behavior. In Lord of the Flies, there’s just as disturbing a descent into violence and murder — but in this case, it’s the absence of social influences that results in savagery.

This new Lord of the Flies begins like the TV series Lost, which started with a close-up of a plane crash survivor waking up and making his way through the island jungle. In this case, it’s a rosy-cheeked Piggy, played so unaffectedly by David McKenna, who wanders until he encounters Ralph, played by Winston Sawyers. The soundtrack, by Hans Zimmer and others, relies greatly on angelic vocal arrangements, because one group of young boys who survive the crash make up the school choir.

Just as in Golding’s novel, the two boys, basically representing intellect (Piggy) and bravery (Ralph), respectively, make their way to the beach. Piggy finds a conch shell and tells Ralph to blow in it. The sound he makes summons other kids from the rain forest, and Ralph organizes a meeting.

The boys’ choir from the same school makes a dramatic entrance, still dressed in robes and singing. They walk single file behind their young, arrogant leader, Jack — who quickly challenges the other group. Ralph begins to show deference, but Piggy does not.

From that point on, the island descends into a sort of battlefield. Recently, the TV series Yellowjackets offered a variation on that same theme — the variation being that the plane-crash survivors were teen girls, not young boys. As Lord of the Flies progresses, one group is responsible and civilized, building shelters and gathering fruit and water, while the other hunts for wild game and dons face paint like native warriors in old movies they’ve seen.

Thorne is stunningly faithful to Golding’s original text, except for allowing one ill-fated child to live a little longer than in the book. Some sequences, like the first wild boar hunt, are filmed by Munden in a way that puts you right there with the boys — and as the boys transform from frightened to feral, it’s hard to shake, and to forget. Adolescence was that way, too. Lord of the Flies is a bit easier to watch. But both of them are bold dramas, featuring amazingly good young actors, that will grab your heart, as well as your mind.

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