Sweet Tooth
Based on Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire
Developed by Jim Mickle
Starring Nonso Anozie, Christian Convery, Adeel Akhtar, Stefania LaVie Owen, Dania Ramirez, Aliza Vellani, James Brolin, Will Forte
Music by Jeff Grace
Production
Executive producers Jim Mickle, Susan Downey & Robert Downey Jr., Amanda Burrell, Linda Moran, Beth Schwartz
Producers Evan Moore, Mel Turner, Christina Ham
Production location New Zealand
I got through the first couple of episodes of Sweet Tooth with a fair bit of irritation. The basic premise, that hybrid children/critters were popping up all over the place, the result of the flu, was loopy enough. There was the fact that the flu, dubbed H5N7, was apparently beyond the ability of science to formulate a vaccine for a variant of a well-known virus. And despite the fact that most cities were in ruins ten years after The Great Crumble, collapsed skyscrapers and dead vehicles everywhere, the lights are on all over the place. Not a windmill or solar panel in sight. Apparently the internet is still up, even though people in suburbs need horses to get around. Oh, and the Big Bad (General Abbot, played by Neil Sandilands) looked like he escaped from a Gilbert Shelton cartoon.
Add the fact that you had a young boy called “Sweet Tooth” traveling with a hulking football player named “Big Man” and it has a vaguely pederastic tone to it.
I’ll get mail at this point. Yes, I had high praise for shows such as The Boys or Umbrella Academy, which had premises equally ridiculous and even more so. I calmly watch a guy with a goldfish bowl (with goldfish and water) for a head, but I balk at the sight of a ten-year old boy with deer antlers?
The difference between this and the other two shows is that this one wanted to be taken seriously as a drama. The other two were sly winks from the get-go. This one wanted to be on the level of a Playhouse production.
Here’s the thing: it pulls it off. The interactions between the characters are both realistic and fairly sophisticated. The only flaws were Adeel Akhtar’s character, who is a bit too close to the stereotype of the overly fastidious and squirrelly Indian, and Stefania La Vie Owen, who at age 23 is somewhat less convincing as a troubled teen, despite being short and having freckles. (In fairness, she is also a terrific actor with credits such as The Lovely Bones, Messiah and is terrific here, as well). Christian Convery, who plays the ten year old Gus, the eponymous “Sweet Tooth” loves maple syrup and candy bars (This doesn’t strike me as unusual for ten year old boys, but details, details) and is wholly convincing in his role.
The writing is solid when it comes to the characters, and the acting is quite up to the task. The plot overcomes the basic strangeness of the world and is engaging and surprisingly realistic. James Brolin’s VOs at the start and end of each episode add a sort of folksy gravitas.
I didn’t expect it to be any good, but it surprised me, and a pleasant surprise it is.
Now on Netflix.