Imagine Mad Men with only a serviceable script and set in academia instead of Madison Avenue and you will have a fair idea of Lessons in Chemistry, Apple TV+’s adaptation of the Bonnie Garmus bestseller of the same name.
The eight-part drama stars Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott, a chemistry genius whose fulfilment of her potential has been thwarted at every turn by the entrenched sexism of her era, the late 1950s. After being effectively forced to leave college before completing her PhD, we meet her working as a lab assistant – and coffee-maker – for a team of scientists who are intellectually inferior but blessed with the Y chromosome.
There is but one man who can (almost) match her in brainpower – the institution’s star and moneymaker Dr Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman). Pullman has the same aura of everyman decency as his father, Bill – and that makes him perfect casting as Zott’s sole supporter and, eventually, beloved. Their tentative, tender courtship is a delight to watch, despite more than a few clunking lines (“To assume that [you were a secretary] was wrong and buffoonish”), and a tendency to deploy jarringly modern references (to establishing boundaries, for example, at work) to make sure we understand that this is a healthy relationship and Elizabeth is in no way compromising her innate feminism by yielding to him. Lessons in Chemistry treads as carefully as Zott does her experiments.
This, plus the removal of much of the book’s humour, gives the TV version a worthier feel than the book, without adding much to what was, in essence, a wish-fulfilment fantasy-cum-romcom. The only light relief comes from Zott’s inability to pick up social cues or abide by social conventions. And that is a joke that can get real wearisome, real fast. It’s also a hard sell for an actor and Larson does well to bear the burden as lightly as she does.
The series follows the book’s plot fairly closely, as Zott – who has always applied her scientific knowledge to her cookery in private – becomes a popular TV chef after a chance meeting with a TV executive while she is casting about for ways to support herself and her daughter, as the patriarchy continually refuse to acknowledge her real strengths. She is hired for her all-American air and apparent embodiment of all things domestic and feminine, then proceeds to subvert producers’ expectations while raising those of her female viewers. “Children, set the table,” she says at the end of every show, after demonstrating what changes can be made to unpromising ingredients with the right application of the right agents and forces. “Your mother needs a moment to herself.”
The two main differences between the book and the adaptation are that the talking dog device has largely been dropped and the part of the nosy neighbour Harriet Sloane has been beefed up into something meaningful. The canine companion is – bar one episode – now no longer given a voice or anywhere near as much narrative space or weight. For those of us who always found it a slightly emetic conceit, this is nothing but good news. The advent of Harriet redux is even better news. Mesmerisingly played by Aja Naomi King, who has charisma to burn, she is now – as well as the wife and mother who is able to dispel maternal myths for Elizabeth, when she is in danger of drowning in the demands of new motherhood – a community activist and one-time law student who has been as stymied in her goal as Elizabeth, this time by the prejudice against her race as well as sex.
Lessons in Chemistry is a wholly enjoyable watch, just as the book was a wholly enjoyable read (apart from the dog). But, like the book, it still carries with it the sense of an opportunity wasted. We have seen this kind of condemnation of the 50s, of its sexism and racism many times before, from the nuanced brilliance of Mad Men itself to the simplistic likes of Masters of Sex and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. We may not have learned their lessons but we have heard them multiple times. An extra special ingredient these days is needed to mark any new series on the subject out from the herd.
Lessons in Chemistry is streaming on Apple TV+
