48 Time May 18, 2020
Dominick anD Thomas BirDsey are as DifferenT as
identical twins can be. Born on opposite sides of midnight on
New Year’s Eve 1950, they began life at the end of one decade
and the beginning of the next—with separate birthdays and,
as students during the Vietnam War, divergent draft numbers.
When we meet them in I Know This Much Is True, an emotional
HBO miniseries based on Wally Lamb’s 1998 best seller, the
brothers (both played by Mark Ruffalo) are 40, and the dis-
parities between them couldn’t be clearer. Thomas, a paranoid
schizophrenic, has just walked into a public library with a knife
and sliced off his own hand.
Dominick appears to be the responsible twin. With their
mother (Melissa Leo) dead of cancer, leaving behind only a
gruff stepfather (John Procaccino) who hit the boys when they
were kids, Dominick has dutifully managed his brother’s af-
fairs. But Thomas’ public self-mutilation—which he says is
an act of protest against the increasingly inevitable Gulf War,
attracting national media thirsty for a crackpot prophet—
plunges Dominick’s life into crisis too. After officials move
Thomas against his will from his group home to a harsh milita-
ristic institution, an altercation sets off a spiral of events that
reveal how tenuous Dominick’s apparent stability actually was.
The story’s biblical symbolism reaches far beyond Thomas’
literal interpretation of Jesus’ exhortation: “And if thy right
hand offend thee, cut it off.” Like Cain’s murder of Abel,
This Much asks whether one brother is the other’s keeper.
Dominick’s successes tend to come at his twin’s expense, as
was the case with Jacob and Esau. Their mom’s lifelong refusal
to divulge the identity of their birth dad
creates lingering questions about the sins
of fathers real and imaginary, biological
and adoptive, historical and expectant.
This excess of subtext comes straight
out of Lamb’s 901-page tome, as does
the ceaseless torrent of misfortune that
threatens to drown the Birdseys. (Com-
fort TV this is not.) Though writer-
director Derek Cianfrance smartly
dilutes the melodrama with the same
blunt realism that made his 2010 film
Blue Valentine a gut punch, he doesn’t
entirely succeed at bringing the nar-
rative down to earth. And his un-
adorned approach doesn’t always work
with subplots— including flashbacks
to the life of the brothers’ Italian im-
migrant grandfather—that could’ve
used more flair.It’s Ruffalo who Rescues the show
from mediocrity, counteracting heavy-
handed twists and on-the-nose lines
(“You’re his mirror self,” Thomas’ psy-
chologist, played by a well-cast Archie
Panjabi, informs Dominick). And while
A-list actors’ portrayals of mentally ill
characters reliably attract awards atten-
tion, it is as Dominick that Ruffalo does
some of his best work. Commanding as
it is, his performance is also generous.
It brings out the best in scene partners
from the great Kathryn Hahn (as his ex)
to Rosie O’Donnell, whose empathetic
turn as Thomas’ social worker honors a
tough, often thankless profession.
Righteous anger and raw vulner-
ability have long defined Ruffalo’s most
memorable characters. Sometimes
that intensity can overpower a movie,
Incredible Hulk–style, yet it finds a per-
fect outlet in Dominick, a good but bro-
ken man who’s incapable of acknowl-
edging the extent of his damage. After
the pain of a failed marriage, a lost ca-
reer and multiple deaths, it is Thomas’
ordeal that finally puts him in a posi-
tion to get the support he so desperately
needs. In the end, the Birdseys may not
be as different as they look.I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE premieres
May 10 on HBOTimeOff Television
◁
Ruffalo x 2: the actor plays brothers
Dominick and Thomas Birdsey‘The show
is right for
this strange
experience
we are living
through.’
MARK RUFFALO,
to the New York
Times, about
I Know This Much
Is TrueREVIEW
Mark Ruffalo’s aim is True
By Judy Berman