A swirling sandstorm and a bare, almost Beckettian backdrop perfectly capture the scorched-earth landscape in the opening pages of John Steinbeck’s 1939 epic, which bodes well for this adaptation. But while Carrie Cracknell’s drama is always big on atmosphere, it wilts into something less bold, more timidly documentary, in its effort to capture the large-scale sense of hope against despair in the US during the Great Depression.
Adapted by Frank Galati, it features the Joad family’s move west from dust-bowl Oklahoma, hoping to find work and survive. Instead, they face exploitation from landowners, hostility from police, migrant destitution and death along the way. The novel is gruelling and you certainly feel a relentless hardship here, but without Steinbeck’s ability to bring a close-up and intimate humanity to these characters.
