The Extraordinary "John Adams"

"John Adams," based on the Pulitzer-Prize-winning book by David McCullough, gives viewers a gritty, realistic look at colonial America. This is no costume party. Parental discretion is advised.

Part I begins in pre-revolutionary Massachussetts where attorney John Adams (Paul Giamatti) witnesses a harrowing melee between colonial citizens and British troops on snowy streets. Five people are shot dead, including an adolescent boy whom Adams briefly cradles in his arms. Many are wounded. More are traumatized. Calling upon his rationality and professionalism, Adams struggles to master his emotions. He winds up successfully defending a group of British soldiers against charges of murdering unarmed civilians, earning him a reputation for nonpartisanship. As a result, Adams is courted by both the Crown and separatists.

His wife Abigail, played by the lovely and engaging Laura Linney, is both soulmate and muse. She helps smooth John's rough edges and wisely tells him to tone down the erudition in his closing argument in the murder trial.

I always thought of John Adams as a grumpy, lethargic figure. Giamatti does play him with a dour edge, but also with great physical and emotional vigor. Amidst the chaotic scrabble of Boston, Adams struggles to get water from an icy well and helps a vendor right an overturned pushcart. I had a sense of empathetic dread as to what might befall Adams every time he left his humble abode.

A particularly disturbing moment comes when a British customs agent gets into an altercation with a shipmaster in Boston Harbor. Despite Adams's pleas for calm, the locals strip the agent naked, then scald him with hot, black tar which is topped off with white feathers.

In the revolutionary countryside, Adams works his farm with relish. You can practically smell the manure he invites his son to sniff.

While Adams is debating American independence in Philadelphia, a smallpox epidemic ravages Greater Massachussetts. The feisty Abigail has herself and her three young children innoculated. Given the state of eighteenth century medicine, this was a very dangerous undertaking. Doctors didn't use needles back then. They cut an incision into the upper arm with a scalpel and poured the serum into the wound with a glass tube. Having feared shots as a youngster, I winced when the young Adamses received their primitive treatments. They soon developed pox-like reactions to the serum, common in that era.

The series presents a rarely-seen human side of Adams. His relationship with Abigail is intensely emotional and sexual. He is a stern but tender father, and it pains him to be away from his family so often.

Tom Wilkinson plays a wiley Benjamin Franklin, aging but still agile in mind and body. David Morse is a dead ringer for George Washington. You can cut the tension in the Continental Congress with a proverbial knife as representatives spiritedly debate the birth of a great nation.

"John Adams", co-produced by Tom Hanks, can be seen on HBO on Sundays at 9 pm EST. Part III airs on March 23.