All in the family

There is nothing like a dysfunctional family when it comes to telling stories. Netflix’s recent foray into the superhero genre, The Umbrella Academy , begins with the well-worn but still powerful theme — the fractured family coming together through the death of the patriarch.

Writers love this kind of petri dish scenario because it allows them to throw their characters into the deep end, exposing their vulnerabilities, testing their resolve and watching them hurt and be hurt. Creators as disparate as Anne Enright (in her Booker-winning novel The Gathering ) and Wes Anderson (in his signature films The Darjeeling Limited and The Royal Tenenbaums ) are, improbably, united in their fondness for this plot device. Of course, the device works only when the characters are interesting enough to keep the action chugging along, something which The Umbrella Academy — a series that starts on February 15 — excels at.

The show is based on writer Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Bá’s Eisner-winning comics series of the same name. Way and Bá have been at it since 2007, with the third miniseries released in October 2018. In the comics world, The Umbrella Academy is hailed as punk rock epic — self-aware, sardonic dialogue married to atypical, allusive art, all wrapped up in a superhero package. Expectations, therefore, were high and, for the most part, the show did not disappoint.

The story begins, in true comic book fashion, with an ominous-looking flashback. In October 1989, 43 women around the world gave birth to children after showing no signs of being pregnant. These children all seemed to be gifted with superhuman abilities. Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), an eccentric billionaire, traces and adopts seven of these children. Through more flashbacks, we learn that Hargreeves trained six of them to become a crime-fighting superhero team called The Umbrella Academy. The seventh child, Vanya (the adult Vanya is played by Ellen Page) is relegated to administrative assistance because, Hargreeves tells her, there’s “nothing special” about her. This feels positively warm and familial when you look at how the “special” kids are treated — their father doesn’t even name them (until their adoptive mother eventually does so), calling them Number One, Number Two and so on.

Page’s character Vanya is the moral core of the show. Many years ago, Vanya wrote a memoir detailing her time at the academy, a decision that estranged her from her siblings and her father. Not being “special”, she craved even the boring and repetitive parts of her siblings’ training regime. Page gives the grown-up Vanya, now a concert violinist, a certain gravitas that becomes the show’s backbone.

The bits where we see The Umbrella Academy’s early exploits are well-planned black comedy set-pieces, such as the madcap sequence in the first episode where we see the children foil a bank robbery — by killing the robbers, one by one, in increasingly horrific ways. We realise how the children’s powers tie into their current-day feuds and issues, and why the Umbrella Academy had to disband.

Allison, aka Number Three (Emmy Raver-Lampman), has the ability to manipulate reality through the lies she tells. You may have seen a hundred bank heists gone wrong, but Allison’s gambit is unlike any of them — the child just giggles and whispers into a robber’s ear, “I heard a rumour you shot and killed your friend”. This is, of course, exactly what happens seconds later. We also know by this point that the current-day, 30-something Allison is a divorced movie star and has lost custody of her daughter. She refuses to use her powers to save her marriage or see her daughter again.

We learn how Klaus, who can communicate with the dead, grows increasingly frustrated with his father. Klaus (Number Four) provides the comic relief and, yet, Robert Sheehan (from Misfits , another enjoyable show about juvenile superheroes) elevates the character significantly — the drugs, the slippery tongue, the no-filter banter, every little element in his character right down to the smoky eyes and the unisex skirts are inch-perfect.

Aidan Gallagher, 15, is perhaps the pick of the lot, a bored but dangerous time-traveller. On the day of the father’s funeral, he announces that the world is going to end in eight days, unless the siblings can do something about it. The main characters aside, the magnificent Mary J Blige is on top form as Cha-Cha, a time-travelling assassin who is equally adept at hurling insults.

Although the action scenes are competently done, The Umbrella Academy is by no means a gore-fest. Its biggest strength, perhaps, is its quirkiness. This is exemplified by a key scene just before the funeral, when the siblings, one by one, each alone in their own little room, start to dance to I Think We’re Alone Now, a song that begins with: “Children behave/ That’s what they say when we’re together/ And watch how you play/ They don’t understand”. Page dancing solo to this song is a poignant image and sheer cinematic gold from a great actor.

It’s another reminder of the pace at which comic book adaptations are evolving; and while The Umbrella Academy doesn’t really seek to challenge the genre, it definitely represents the fun parts.

Aditya Mani Jha is a Delhi-based writer

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