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Alison Herman
TV Critic
aherman2006 See All
Courtesy of Netflix “The Lord of the Flies” is the kind of show you praise by emphasizing how hard it is to watch. Adapted from William Golding’s classic 1954 novel by Jack Thorne (co-writer of “Adolescence”), directed by Marc Munden (“The Sympathizer”) and originally aired by the BBC before coming to Netflix in the U.S., the four-episode series doesn’t make any major changes to Golding’s potent allegory for the thin line separating civilization from savagery. The story of British schoolboys marooned on a remote tropical island without adult supervision isn’t modernized — it retains its World War II backdrop — or gender-swapped, like Showtime’s “Flies”-inflected “Yellowjackets.” It also doesn’t have to be. Simply watching these boys, played by a uniformly terrific cast of child actors, succumb to their worst instincts is harrowing enough to make you long to look away — even if you’d be missing some gripping drama.
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