TV REVIEW: Rosemary’s Baby Delivers Uneven Performance

This week NBC attempted to reface a horror classic with an updated take on Rosemary’s Baby.

The two night and four hour mini-series event kept with the original premise, following a young married couple and their devilish journey into becoming parents.

Rosemary (Zoe Saldana, “Star Trek”) and Guy (Patrick J. Adams, “Suits”) Woodhouse try to start fresh by moving from the hectic world of New York to the cultured and more relaxed city of Paris. Some of the strife from their old life follows, but soon after meeting Roman (Jason Isaacs, “Harry Potter” franchise) and Margaux (Carole Bouquet, “For Your Eyes Only”) Castevet, their luck begins to turn around.

When the young couple are presented with an offer they can’t refuse — an apartment with the most prestigious address in the city — they of course accept. But everything is not what it seems and soon Rosemary must face the reality that the man she loves and the neighbors she thought she knew may not have her (best) interest at heart. We watch as Rosemary quickly spirals into what others perceive as madness. In reality, she’s uncovered a witch-y cult determined to bring the devil’s spawn to earth.

The new cast is stacked with well-known talent, lead by Saldana, Adams and Isaacs. All three posses the chops and resumes to make them seemingly perfect fits for their respective characters. The problem is that for the first two hours Saldana is the only one with vital signs. Like Rosemary to the devil’s child, Saldana literally gives the miniseries life — in spite of the unexciting first act. She is at her best during the series’ last two hours as we watch Rosemary unravel the mysterious threat around her while physically and mentally unraveling herself. Her desire and desperation make her the most relatable character in the story, but her final twist gives her the take home for scariest.

Like Saldana, Adams puts his better foot forward in Thursday’s offerings. His flat performance from Sunday’s showcase withers away as we see Guy morph from a bland leading man to a subtly threatening force in Rosemary’s life. Adams never quite exhibits the shark-like business charm of his 1968 predecessor though, which is both odd and fairly disappointing considering the role he is most known for.

Part of the issue was how very little Saldana and Adams resembled a young couple in love. Their chemistry is distant and stale during part one — the time when its on screen existence is most important. The audience must want to believe in the couple and their desire for both personal and professional success. We have to feel like there’s a connection worth protecting, so when the plot turn drops we too feel the betrayal.

We never see this happen and so the miniseries is unable to effectively and believably deliver the twist of Guy’s sellout. Their relationship was functional to the narrative at best, and awkwardly distant at worst. It never truly felt like Rosemary had any reason to trust her husband over her friend, Julie (Christina Cole “The Assets”). Ironically, as the two grow apart in the second half both develop into stronger and more compelling characters.

While the leading couple struggled, the leading friendship between Saldana and Cole’s characters was the most emotionally genuine of the entire series. Without question Julie’s grim and painful death — a direct result of her trying to protect Rosemary — was more disappointing than watching Guy sign away his wife’s body to the devil.

Pictured (L-R): Carole Bouquet as Margaux Castevet, Jason Isaacs as Roman Castevet — Photo by: Roger Do Minh/NBC

Isaacs and Boquoet aren’t any more convincing as characters or a couple. Their presence in the second half feels smaller than that of the first, but it’s almost a relief as the story moves better without them. The Castevets offer Isaacs an opportunity to illustrate his penchant for quiet menace while Boquoet is given a handful of chances to pull off an effective smiling cobra routine. Neither fully sells the creep of their characters though and even at their most threatening they feel far less satanic masterminds and more overbearing odd couple.

The pacing of Sunday’s hours was rather laborious, which — going in — seemed a like a hard outcome to achieve considering how wonderfully efficient the narrative of the 1968 original is. Rosemary’s Baby helped define the horror and suspense genre, but NBC’s remake was lacking on both fronts. It wasn’t until Saldana’s performance signaled a mental decent that the show’s dramatics struck a cord. Once it did the story unfurled almost effortlessly, and you were easily sucked into the narrative’s downword spiral. The second half also provided viewers with its most shocking moments, due in large part to how creatively the Castevets could kill.

While the second half had a better turnout, Rosemary’s Baby never quite unlocked the “unsettling terror” the story was known for.The drastic difference between the nights’ offerings makes it clear that four hours of this series worked against the  promising adaptation. With uneven performances and a stretched out narrative, NBC’s take on the classic film didn’t live up to its own expectations.