Legion - 'Chapter 1'

"Were you really in Downton?"

As the MCU's small screen cousins, the excellent New York stories and the somewhat meh Agents of SHIELD continue a pace, a new entry comes to the parallel universe of the X-Men and Deadpool, although apparently this is a parallel version of this parallel to the one with the films in, if that is indeed a singular universe in and of itself by now. If that seems complicated, just wait until we get going on Legion.

Legion comes in with a tough line to sell. David Haller is a patient in the Clockwork Mental Hospital (yes, that's what it's called,) who hears voices in his head and has occasionally believed that he has the power to control matter. A happy childhood is rapidly replaced with a troubled adolescence in one of the world's most tragic and uncomfortable montages. Diagnosed with and treated for paranoid schizophrenia and fearing a malign 'devil with the yellow eyes,' David nonetheless forges a relationship with contact-averse new patient Syd Barrett(1) alongside his friendship with slobbish long-time hospital crony Lenny, and seems to be doing fine until she is sent out into the world, their goodbye kiss somehow swaps their bodies and Lenny ends up fused into a wall and very, very dead. Could it be that David really does have powers, that Syd does as well, and that Lenny died when Syd found herself suddenly trying to control David's abilities?

This is super adorable. And then people die.

Such appears to be the assumption of the enigmatic and sinister government agents who are questioning David. Our protagonist, meanwhile, is off his meds and struggling to understand what is happening now and what is happening then, even before Syd turns up in his dreams and Lenny starts talking to him from beyond the grave. Ultimately he is rescued by Syd and a group of other powered individuals, and taken to meet Melanie, an older woman who may have the answers (although I'm skeptical that even if she does we'll get to them before 'Chapter 4'.)

Written by Noah Hawley, creator of the excellent Fargo TV series, Legion tackles one of Marvel's most difficult characters, one whose power is tied up with mental illness. It's not a topic that mainstream comics have traditionally tackled with a great deal of tact - especially not Legion's particular deal, dissociative personality disorder - so it is perhaps a good thing that this is not what you might call a mainstream comic book adaptation. It is frankly impressive that it has got through the first episode without being rampantly offensive, and that gives me some hope.

Saturated in a seventies colour palette and steeped in the music of the past, it is nonetheless hard to pin down the series to a particular time and place. Not the present day, probably. It mentions mutants, but this only hints at similarities to the X-Men, and only in the final scenes of this opening episode do we get any solid suggestion that David's powers, or those of his rescuers, might be real.

I want to believe Syd when she says this is real, but I could also believe this
scene as an artefact of David's mind.

In fact, the great strength and potentially greatest weakness of the series is that we don't know what, if any, of what we are seeing is real. We see things as David sees them; faces change, memories are flawed, and we can't know if he is talking to the ghost of his dead friend, or a memory, or a psychic construct or whatall else. Did his captors all burst into flames, or has he just slipped into unconsciousness and dreamed that bit? That there is no way to be sure is the USP of the series, although it is also an easy way to alienate the audience if not handled well. If nothing we see is real, after all, then we can't get any sort of handle on the fictional universe and we might as well not bother, so the series is going to have to at least convince us that it's giving us new information, even if it is lying to us sometimes.

Definitely different, certainly interesting, and boasting a strong, if not recognisable cast, Legion has defied the odds and made a powerful opening. Here's hoping it stays the course.

(1) Not that one.

Secretary

Recently released from psychiatric care, Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is seeking an escape from her family home. She finds it in employment as secretary to eccentric lawyer E. Edward Grey (James Spader), and as the relationship spirals rapidly beyond the professional it provides more of an escape than Lee could have expected.

Secretary is another of those films that I really ought to have watched ages ago. In this case, I didn't because so many people raved so much about it, I was worried they'd be disappointed if I hated it (which in the end, I didn't).

The film is described (by Wikipedia, at least) as an erotic romance, although it also has elements of romantic and/or sex comedy. The film neither glamourises nor scorns the central BDSM relationship of the film, instead painting it with good and bad tones. Grey's pervasive and self-destructive sense of shame at his own nature is clearly painted as the deviance here (alongside the requests of the self-styled sadists Lee meets later in the film), and the continuation of her unfulfilling relationship with her 'normal' boyfriend the only blameworthy act on Lee's part. In many ways, it takes a subject that expects to be treated as kinky and weird, or played for laughs, and instead makes a conventional romantic comedy of office relationships out of it.

The relationship itself is nuanced and well observed, and the balance of power within it is beautifully portrayed. The distance between the sneering accusation of 'submissive' by Edward's ex and the determined, controlled persona that submission actually brings out of Lee is tremendous. Much of the film's subtext relies on wordless moments, where a lesser film would throw in a bunch of voice over, but Gyllenhaal and Spader carry it with their bodies and faces alone, with Lee's ordeal presented throughout not as degradation, but as triumph.

If the film has a notable weakness, it is that it is too successful in normalising the central BDSM relationship, to the point that it sometimes seems to have lost its USP. It might also have had more punch when it was made, that being a dozen years ago now. It remains an excellent film, however, and one I am glad to have finally seen.

Edited to add: In a more recent discussion of the film, I suggested that it is a film about two very unhealthy people, who are unhealthy in large part because the world tells them that they are and forces them to conform and to hate themselves, who come together and ultimately forge a healthy relationship together.