11.22.63: James Franco goes back in time to save JFK

The Binge
Jessica Zafra

From Chris Marker’s sublime short film La Jetée to James Cameron’s Terminator, from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure to Back to the Future, time travelers have been finding that you can’t just go back to the past to correct the present. You end up with a whole new set of problems. The latest to grapple with these complexities is Jake Epping, a high school English teacher who is convinced to go back to the Sixties in order to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. As Epping is portrayed by James Franco, this comes with special circumstances. When Franco’s character emerges in the Sixties, won’t strangers accost him on the street to ask for James Dean’s autograph? And which James Franco will show up: the performance artist who churns out endless versions of himself, the disinterested emcee at the Oscars, or the amazingly empathetic actor who made us feel like our own arms were being sawed off in 127 Hours?

James Franco with George MacKay in a scene from 11.22.63

The Hulu original series 11.22.63 is adapted from Stephen King’s time travel thriller 11/22/63 — no explanation is given as to the change in formatting. King is one of the most beloved of authors, and for good reason: he delivers inventive plots, details of small-town American life so vivid you can taste the diner cheeseburgers and milkshakes, a compelling yet accessible style, and an emotional wallop ending that stops just short of schmaltzy. The typical King character is an everyman the reader can truly care about. I don’t have to read every single one of his many, many books — I’m not even sure this is possible — but whenever I pick one up I feel that I am in the company of an old friend.

Yet his camera-ready prose has not always made it to the screen unscathed. For every Stand By Me (from his novella, The Body) there is a Secret Window, for every Shawshank Redemption (the film that grown men are most likely to weep at), there is a Maximum Overdrive (which King directed himself). This limited series developed by Bridget Carpenter and produced by Carpenter, King, the omnipresent J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk, has cracked that conundrum. A two-hour film adaptation of a Stephen King novel would be choked with plot and detail, but an eight-episode series gives his feverish imaginings room to breathe and stretch its limbs.

The season premiere “Rabbit Hole,” directed by Kevin Macdonald (You have to see his documentary Touching the Void, about an ill-fated attempt to summit the Siula Grande in Peru), is so amiable and laid-back, it seems churlish to point out its inconsistencies. (And yet we still do.) We are introduced to Jake Epping (Franco), who has just been divorced, and subsists on cheap fatburgers at a diner run by his friend Al Templeton (Chris Cooper). Al looks fine, handsome in a granite-like way, and then he is seized by a fit of coughing and is instantly on the brink of death. He reveals to Jake that a closet in the back of the diner is… a time portal. Whoever enters it comes out on 11:58 a.m. on October 21, 1960.

And we believe this because it is presented to us matter-of-factly, with no attempt at some science-fiction explanation. We do not ask, “Why 11:58 a.m. on 10.21.60?” but we do wonder at Al’s certainty that if John F. Kennedy had lived, the Vietnam War would not have escalated and the world would be a far better place. Later we wonder why Jake, who is not particularly interested in JFK or the many conspiracy theories surrounding his death, would agree to go back to 1960, and then hang around in the past for three years in order to prevent the assassination. (The question of how he would support himself in that era is answered with a book of sports results, just like in Back to the Future II.) But then the story takes an interesting turn.

Al reveals that the past will not sit quietly by while people attempt to change it. When one gets too close to making an alteration, it fights back. Things burst into flames, objects fall from the ceiling, houses burn down. The luminous Sadie Dunhill (Sarah Gadon, who played the Princess Elizabeth in A Royal Night Out) is not obviously one of the past’s defenses, but she becomes the greatest threat to Jake’s assignment. The romance of Jake and Sadie gives 11.22.63 an emotional charge — suddenly, we have a stake in the mission’s outcome. Sure, saving JFK is important, but we really have to see the lovers live happily ever after.

Naturally the focus of Jake’s mission is Lee Harvey Oswald (Daniel Webber), the man who is believed to have killed Kennedy. Did he act alone, and if not, on whose behest? On the way to Oswald, Jake has the chance to change at least one terrible deed involving a charming bully (a menacing Josh Duhamel), and in the process meets young Bill (George MacKay), who becomes his sidekick. Implausibility piles on coincidence, but we are riveted by James Franco playing a clever, irascible man who, for reasons not entirely known to himself, has decided to change history. Good work, Franco.

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