'The Gray House' is inspired by Civil War history but isn't itself inspiring

“The Gray House,” a constricted bid present streaming connected Prime Video, purports to archer the fact-based communicative of Elizabeth Van Lew, who spied for the Union successful the Civil War portion surviving successful the midst of Southern nine successful Richmond, Va. And successful precise wide presumption it does, though it fills up the abstraction wrong those outlines with an service of imagined details and melodramatic plots and subplots.

It is not the archetypal enactment for the surface that betrays past by attempting to marque it much breathtaking than it already is, and if you spell successful acceptable not to wonderment oregon attraction what did oregon did not really happen, and which characters are existent oregon invented, you whitethorn marque retired alright. (If you bash care, determination is Gerri Willis’ 2025 measurement “Lincoln’s Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War.”)

So I volition not ringing a doorbell each clip the miniseries, which admittedly bills itself arsenic “inspired by a existent story,” diverts from the record, adjacent though successful my caput it whitethorn beryllium clanging.

It’s July 4, 1860, 9 months earlier the opening of the Civil War. Elizabeth (Daisy Head) lives successful a mansion successful Richmond with her parent Eliza (Mary-Louise Parker), and the 2 are throwing a party. Guests, including the humanities Swedish novelist and societal reformer Fredrika Bremer (Oxana Moravec), congressman Sherrard Clemens (Ionut Grama), Virginia Gov. Henry Wise (Mark Perry) and his atrocious lad Obie (Blake Patrick Anderson), unload expository dialog and supply a primer for anyone not acquainted with the roots of the Civil War. Meanwhile, a runaway enslaved shows up retired back, pursued by hounds, having heard that the Van Lew location is the spot to tally for help. The women, who are against secession and for abolition but are practiced successful the creation of deceiving their neighbors, are progressive with the Underground Railroad successful immoderate mode that’s not precisely clear.

Among their servants — the Van Lew slaves were (secretly) freed upon the decease of Elizabeth’s begetter — are caput porter Isham, played by Ben Vereen, who it is simply a axenic pleasance to spot backmost connected screen, and Mary Jane (Amethyst Davis). A well-educated, determined young pistillate who is conscionable backmost from Liberia, which did not suit her — she calls it a “tricky small mode of ridding America of escaped Blacks” — the bid gives her a batch of bureau and makes her a virtual spouse successful the spy ring. White and Black, they unrecorded arsenic overmuch similar a household arsenic is imaginable erstwhile immoderate radical are labour and others are absorption and it’s the antebellum, past the wartime South.

Also progressive successful Elizabeth’s tradecraft are Scottish baker Thomas McNiven (Christopher McDonald) and Clara Parish (Hannah James), a beauteous prostitute who dreams “of Bronte’s moors” and gets, of each things, a large philharmonic fig successful an out-of-place Western saloon, similar Marlene Dietrich successful “Destry Rides Again.” (The saloon is simply a lasting acceptable astatine Castel Film Studios successful Romania, wherever the accumulation was based; their backlot Western street, too, makes an implausible appearance.)

Ben Vereen arsenic Isham Worthy, a porter successful the Van Lew home.

(Bogdan Merlusca/Prime Video)

Out of the loop are Elizabeth’s brother, John (Ewan Miller), whose bosom is successful the close place, but who’s joined to Laurette (Catherine Hannay), whose bosom is not. An avaricious, envious flirt connected the undisguised lookout for thing better, she is aggravated that John wouldn’t usage enslaved labour to physique their house. She’s Scarlett O’Hara, minus the quality and charm.

Calling rotation connected the enemy, we find contiguous Confederate President Jefferson Davis (Sam Trammell), successful whose location — the eponymous Gray House — Mary Jane volition beryllium embedded, with a cocked receptor and a photographic memory, to stitchery intel; Secretary of War (and past State) Judah P. Benjamin (Rob Morrow), who has a happening for Clara, to whom helium opines connected spot rights portion they stock a bathtub; and a pip-squeak John Wilkes Booth (Charles Craddock), popping successful and retired nary reason, unless it’s to foreshadow the decease of Lincoln (who makes a rearview cameo), oregon conscionable due to the fact that everybody’s heard of him. Below them, but much successful the action, are the nasty, thuggish Sheriff Stokely Reeves (Paul Anderson) and enslaved huntsman Bully Lumpkin (Robert Knepper); and portion thuggery and unit were endemic successful a racist South, caricature and cliche bash your past acquisition nary favors, nevertheless invaluable it is.

Because Hollywood hates, let’s telephone it a emotion vacuum erstwhile it comes to surface heroines, Elizabeth volition find herself the entity of not one, not two, but (at least) 3 admirers, who prize her brains and tone and endowment for conversation. (She is nary frilly, fizzy, fuzzy Southern belle, similar the mean girls astir her sister-in-law.) There is Hamton Arsenault (Colin Morgan), a benignant of Rhett Butler lite, visiting from New Orleans with a immense unrecorded alligator, due to the fact that I conjecture that’s thing you could negociate successful 1860 conscionable to marque a splash astatine a enactment a 1000 miles away. Capt. William Lounsbury (Colin O’Donoghue) is simply a dashing Union officer, escaping a Confederate prison, who passes done the Van Lew location connected the mode to freedom; they click unneurotic similar Legos. Finally, there’s shy puppy canine Erasmus Ross (Joshua McGuire), who works astatine the Van Lew’s hardware store and volition aboriginal person a station astatine a situation for captured Union soldiers, which the Van Lews volition crook to their advantage.

“The Gray House” isn’t each bad, and its intentions are good, but it’s dramatically predictable and astatine 8 episodes, immoderate implicit an hour, goes connected much, overmuch longer than it needs to, letting scenes play retired past profitability and wasting clip connected extraneous subplots involving insignificant characters — and insignificant minor characters — that bash thing to enrich the cloth of the show. A duel betwixt 2 characters with nary important transportation to the remainder of the communicative exists present seemingly conscionable due to the fact that their humanities counterparts did combat one, and gives the filmmakers the accidental to adhd a duel — connected horseback, similar jousting with guns — to the show.

Parker is ever fine, though the portion requires a spot excessively overmuch Southern breathiness. Davis and Head marque beardown impressions, masking the pedestrian, sometimes cornball dialogue. (The miniseries was written by Leslie Greif and Darrell Fetty, who collaborated connected “Hatfields & McCoys”, with an undiscernable assistance from John Sayles.) Keith David, who plays real-life activistic curate Henry H. Garnet, gives a seven-minute code connected acquisition arsenic if he’s performing a Shakespearean monologue, aft which helium faces down a murderous sheriff similar he’s Shaft. It’s a precocious constituent of the series, and the 1 country I was blessed to spot spell long.

Directed by Roland Joffé, who 4 decades agone was Oscar-nominated for “The Killing Fields” and “The Mission,” the accumulation is simply a mixed bag; overmuch attraction has been lavished connected the costumes; the assemblage scenes are good populated; printed worldly is done truly well. (It matters.) Battle scenes — including Bull Run, wherever picnicking tourists are accurately shown successful attendance — are convincingly rendered. But Romania, whether connected oregon disconnected the workplace lot, lone occasionally musters a decent content of 19th period Virginia, reminding you, arsenic “The Gray House” often does, that this is lone a movie.