What is it? A mildly questionable but engrossing tale of religious cult members starring Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul.
Why you’ll love it: The somewhat schlocky opening features the aftermath of a hurricane in New Hampshire. Helpless, hopeless people howl and cry in the wreckage of their homes and one extremely insufficiently clad young woman crawls on her hands and knees in search of water. As it’s the immediate aftermath of the great wind, it seems unlikely that she would be this thirsty so soon. But we’ll brush that aside. From nowhere a van-load of clean, helpful people arrive and start dishing out water and hugs, all wearing distinctive T-shirts with a sun symbol on them. And off Mary (she of the too-small shorts and crop top) goes with them, willingly.
Actors appearing in a gruelling drama about broken people following a flawed cult leader are themselves like members of a religious cult, in that they have to trust completely in their mentor and give themselves over to a higher power. Paul and his heroic fellow cast members certainly give their all to Jessica Goldberg’s drama about the fictional Meyerist movement. It’s based in an upstate New York compound, a kind of hallowed Center Parcs for stricken Gap models. The movement displays all the usual signifiers of a cult: doe-eyed followers who seek “truth and light”, a charismatic leader in Cal Roberts (played with impressive nuance not initially present in the script by Hugh Dancy) and an unseen founder, Dr Stephen Meyer, who is thought to be communing with his faith in Peru.
As the somewhat clunky opening episode reveals, Meyer may not be all he seems, Cal’s often positive motivations are muddied by outbursts of violent aggression and his desire for power, and Paul’s character, Eddie, is having a crisis of faith. Instead of ’fessing up to this transgression, he tells his wife Sarah (a stoic Michelle Monaghan), that he’s having an affair. Which seems improbable. You basically have to leave your doubts at the door and drink the unpalatable green smoothie that seems essential to the programming of these Moonies. Or you’ll spend the whole 10 episodes thinking, oh come on.
That said, the work this cast is putting in should not go un-applauded. Monaghan and Paul have the equivalent of an emotional obstacle course on their hands as they try to encompass love, passion, suspicion, resentment and a whole lot of hate-coitus. You know, the kind married couples still do when they have teenage children and they hate/love each other but they can’t keep their hands off each other. No? This is the trouble with The Path. The narrative and the characters are missing on the road to the truth. It doesn’t ring true at all, but it somehow draws you in. I didn’t mean to watch as much of it as I did, which says all you need to know. As the local TV news anchor says to Cal when he appears on her show to promote the Meyerist way: “Sign me up.” The shame and regret can come later.
Where: Amazon Prime.
Length: Ten episodes of 45-55 minutes, all available to stream now. A second season has been commissioned.
Standout episode: They’re all pretty eye-popping but episode two, in which Paul acts himself inside out during a spell in solitary confinement, is quite spectacular.
If you liked The Path, watch: My Scientology Movie (Amazon Prime), The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix).
