Winona Ryder keeps it chic and sophisticated while hitting the red carpet at the screening of Show Me A Hero held at The New York Times Center on Tuesday (August 11) in New York City. Looming over city government is a judge’s decision that 200 public housing units must be built at various locations in Yonkers. “I don’t want the rest of the world to think that’s what Yonkers looks like now”. Simon’s show suggests social housing should be mixed in with private housing as much as possible in order that, to put it bluntly (which the programme does), middle-class values predominate over those of the poor. Does that make me a villain? However, to purchase a home in the wealthy enclave of Yonkers, one needed to be making about 150% more than that figure. There are real people on the other side of the issue too, people like Mary Dorman (Catherine Keener) who elevate pretzel logic to an art form as they explain why their opposition to the housing-so fierce that someone planted a pipe bomb once construction began-is anything but racism.
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In many ways, as the series unfolds, it’s that intangible quality that becomes key to the bigger questions “Show Me A Hero” quietly asks.
“I always give Nick credit”, Martinelli said. A rich, textured, humanistic slice of true history, “Show Me A Hero” is foremost a terrific drama that only resonates more deeply because decades later, America is still grappling with similar problems of class and race. They’re just normal people looking for a better life, and ultimately find one.
They’re aided, as is typical of David Simon productions, by a uniformly excellent cast, led by Oscar Isaac as Nick.
This American Life recently ran a two-part series about the observable, staggering benefits of desegregating public schools. While he clearly disdains the broken, dysfunctional tools of politics, the qualities that shine brightest are the individuals both within and without who survive, support, and unselfishly carry on the day-to-day, unrecognized tasks of keeping families and neighborhoods thriving. Isaac tackled 1980s New York-area economic intrigue last year in J.C. Chandor’s ponderous heating industry drama A Most Violent Year. It does, in the end, show us some heroes-and, I hope, galvanizes even more. The other reason is when you go back a generation, you can actually see the outcome.
Under the guiding hand of Paul Haggis, the once-feted director of Crash and former Scientologist, the opening episodes in particular have a most un-Simon-like zip and accessibility; an early scene even includes a helicopter ride from downtown Manhattan to Yonkers that roams happily over all the key tourist sights, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building, while a Bruce Springsteen track chimes away in the background. Winona Ryder pulls out some great stuff in her turn as Nick’s friend and political ally, councilwoman Vinni Restiano, who is as tough as nails as the men around her. Meanwhile, Jon Bernthal has great fun as the not-quite-jaded, but certainly been-around-the-block NAACP lawyer, Michael Sussman.
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“Show Me a Hero” depicts a vocal section of the community who continually disrupt city council meetings.
