“Eric” on Netflix: Benedict Cumberbatch in a dark series full of tormented beings | REVIEW | REVIEW | CRITICISM | REVIEW | SERIES | STREAMING | SKIP-ENTER

Except for the colorful puppets used in puppeteer Vincent Anderson’s show (Benedict Cumberbatch), everything seems dark in “Eric”, the new mini series of the remembered ‘Doctor Strange’ that has just premiered in Netflix.

Created by Abi Morgan, this six-episode thriller tells the story of two parents desperate for the disappearance of their only son, Edgar (an almost always expressionless Ivan Morris Howe) one day in New York in 1985.

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“Eric” begins two days before what happened to the minor is reported. Vincent and his wife Cassie (Gaby Hoffmann) live an ordinary day. It does not take much time to certify that the marriage is completely broken. She can’t stand it, she throws things at him. He insults her and ignores her.

The disappearance, which occurred on the day Vincent let his son go to school alone, only raises the tension in the bond to stratospheric levels. It is revealed, among other things, that Cassie has a lover, a type very opposite to her husband, that is, someone who listens to her, understands and respects her.

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Driven by desperation, Edgar’s parents must go to the authorities. At this point one of the great secondary characters of “Eric”, Detective Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III), an investigator obsessive with his work who has been unable to overcome his failures in the search for missing minors in ‘The Big Apple’.

The thriller before us opens through two paths. The first, anchored in the concrete, and the second rather in the subjective, emotional, and even pathological. Abi Morgan’s expertise in combining both sides largely explains what is notable about this Netflix proposal.

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Specifically, we could identify aspects such as the search that the parents and detective carry out for the minor Edgar. Vincent decides to follow his instinct and, admitting that he ignored every time his son gave him ideas for his puppet show, he sets out to fulfill his wishes and expose him publicly (“If he sees this on television, he will come home,” he repeats more than once). For her part, Cassie goes the conventional route, handing out posters on the streets and asking strangers for help.

Detective Ledroit evidently follows this same line, who, as with Edgar’s parents, also has his own personal, work and emotional torments. The researcher is a gay African-American in the 80s. His partner has HIV and nothing seems to save him from a fatal outcome. His boss does nothing but hinder any type of initiative he has in the office.

There is, however, a second path that Abi Morgan is strongly committed to: the emotional one. Vincent is a disinterested family man, an unsupportive husband, and a problematic co-worker. But above all that, the protagonist of “Eric” is a being tormented by his past, by his childhood, by his own bond with his father (Robert/John Doman), a successful developer with whom he cannot have a conversation. for 10 seconds.

How is it that Abi Morgan has decided to capture all the torments that haunt Vincent? Through Eric, the immense doll that chases our protagonist up and down as if he were a subconscious. “The worst monsters are not the ones under the bed,” Eric tells Vincent in just one of the many dialogues they engage in while the father searches for his son throughout New York.

The resource of the monster chasing us like a shadow to reproach us “that our son left because he can’t stand us”, however, is far from being the only success of this miniseries. “Eric” is also solid in portraying New York as an absolutely dark city, where values ​​and good people are, unfortunately, the exception. So, if above we see broken homes and families, it is under the sewers that everything explodes.

In what seems to be an eternal housing crisis, the American city that supports this story seems to be collapsing among beggars, homeless people, and alcohol and drug addicts. Everyone seeks refuge in parks, bridges or even inside the subway tracks (also old, defaced and the scene of gloomy situations). Perhaps only circumstances like these could explain the ease with which children get lost there, because Edgar, of course, is not the only one.

As if it were another ‘monster’ (but this one metaphorical and not stuffed), the guilt of the unfound children under his belt as a detective punishes Ledroit, who, for example, is scolded by Cecile (Adepero Oduye), the mother of Marlon Rochelle, because “no one looks for him because he is poor and black.” In his attempt to find the whereabouts of these missing people, the investigator will take us through an underworld as or more nauseating than that of the sewers: that of the exploitation of minors, sexual perversions, but, above all, that of the abuse of power. (political/economic) to cover up unpleasant truths.

As has been demonstrated up to this point in the note, “Eric” raises several issues. Perhaps this attempt to cover everything is a weakness that critics could blame in the future. At some point there are so many things on the table that Vincent’s own character fades and the search ends. At the same time, Gaby Hoffmann is notable enough to be overshadowed in large sections of the miniseries by a script that leaves her behind as a rather patient, measured mother, who only explodes at the moment of her outcome.

It could also be questioned that, beyond the redemption that Father Vincent undergoes throughout the six episodes, Abi Morgan’s proposal presents its themes in a way that is too conventional or classic, so to speak. That criticism could be partly justified. It does happen with, for example, the Andersons’ neighbor (George/Clarke Peters), ignored, accused, arrested (and later released) just for being an older African-American man who lives alone.

“Eric”, a proposal difficult to classify in a single genre (it jumps from thriller to drama and vice versa for almost six hours), achieves, therefore, the desired effect: hooking the viewer with the story of an emotionally broken father who has in search of his son perhaps his last chance to find his own peace. In the presentation of this journey, Abi Morgan and company use certain elements (background music, gloomy locations and permanent camera movements in various directions) that will keep us attentive, but at the same time, anxious, waiting for an outcome. For better or worse.