The most important part is not the detective story but it is that accumulation of existences that intertwine their lives, hurting each other in a tangle of misunderstandings.
Before more rust blooms. The story of “American Rust”, based on the novel of the same name by Philipp Meyer and created by Dan Futterman for Showtime (which we air on Sky Atlantic and NOW), is told from the point of view of the protagonist Del Harris ( Jeff Daniels), the troubled police chief in a small community in the most industrial part of Pennsylvania, in the area called the Rust Belt, the “rust belt” between the Appalachian Mountains and the Great Lakes, once the heart of US heavy industry. The news of a murder committed in a disused steel mill upsets the small community and Harris finds himself between two fires: there is a boy accused of the crime and he must do his duty, but the boy, Bill (played by Alex Neustaedter) , is the son of the woman he is in love with (Maura Tierney). In the small town, many consume alcohol, painkillers, opioids: anxiety is the only way, apparently, to overcome the trauma, to be able to live in a place where rust reigns supreme, where dreams have been swept away by weather.
For this, in the nine episodes, the most important part is not the detective story but it is that accumulation of existences that intertwine their lives, hurting each other in a tangle of misunderstandings, regrets, resentments. Indeed, the murder seems almost a fatal chance to expose the psychologies of the protagonists, the mood of the iron landscape which, in the meantime, has permeated the character of all the inhabitants. Thus everything is simpler, more credible, perhaps even uplifting. As if the reddish-brown color works as a basso continuo. The truth is that the useless is rust, and here it seems that there are only useless existences. A series so rusty that you risk tetanus watching it more than a lot.
November 22, 2021 (change November 23, 2021 | 07:17)
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