Michelle Pfeiffer is a gorgeous griever. “The Madison” makes the most of that with cinematography that lingers on her face as if it were part of Montana’s sun-kissed natural beauty. As New York society matron Stacy Clyburn, Pfeiffer seamlessly shifts through all the colors of inconsolability, from sallow brooding in one moment to red-faced weeping in the next, moving into verdant laughter a scene or two later. One imagines series creator Taylor Sheridan lapping up all that emotion like the thirsty elk Stacy’s husband Preston (Kurt Russell) watches from the window of his riverside cabin.
Preston is a corporate titan living out his lion in winter phase. One gets the sense that he made his money the old-fashioned way, which is never specified. Not that it matters. What’s important is that Preston is a man who values land, space and freedom, ensuring that at the same time, his wife and daughters want for nothing. But although New York life made him wealthy enough to afford a car in Manhattan, he’d rather spend his days fly fishing in the river — the Madison, in Montana. Not the stinky Hudson. Ew.
