Initial viewership low for East of Eden

The mini-series East of Eden, released on Netflix on October 1st, did not achieve strong initial viewership figures. However, the program appears to be appreciated by a significant number of the platform's subscribers, as confirmed by its average viewer rating of 4.1 out of 5 on our site.

New adaptation of a classic novel

The new adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel also serves as a counterpart to the 1955 film featuring James Dean. Additionally, the series creator, Zoe Kazan, is the granddaughter of director Elia Kazan. 70 years after the original, a new version of one of the greatest masterpieces of literature has now appeared on Netflix.

Florence Pugh praised for her performance

According to viewers, the performance of Florence Pugh, who plays the lead role in the series, generates the most praise from internet users. "Hypnotic" according to Pierre C and "magnificent" according to Nathalie B., the English actress delivers a performance marked by precision and restraint.

Positive feedback on writing and cinematography

Among the other qualities of the series in the eyes of our internet users, there is the writing of the program, as well as its cinematography. Or as Philgood summarizes: "The story itself plunges us into the archetypes of psychopathology and is followed with disbelief and admiration for the perfect narrative construction."

Nostalgic response to the original

The series also allowed Henry Y to bring back old memories from his youth: "The original by Kazan with James Dean had extremely pleased me. I bought the book the next day. It was in 1967. I was 15 years old. I have reread it several times, watched the film very often, and I have always regretted that the film only covered the end of Steinbeck's work. Here it is! It is done and... it is sublime."

Criticism of technical and narrative aspects

The mini-series is validated, except for some details. According to Laurent Gay, there is a serious lighting issue that hinders the appreciation of the images: "I watched the first 30 minutes of the first episode by pushing the brightness of my TV to the maximum, but nothing could be done, the image remained dark, so imagine a night scene in a house lit by candles..." "The storyline suffers from a lack of development, perhaps it relies on the viewers' reading of the book, personally having neither seen the film nor read the book, the series did not convince me at all," notes Naïs Martin.

Mixed reception but overall positive

You will have understood: it does not please everyone, but overall East of Eden has convinced a large majority of internet users. A good omen for the series, in view of the upcoming award ceremonies that will take place next year? The seven episodes of the mini-series East of Eden are now available on Netflix.