Humanly moving, and aesthetically prodigious, the adaptation of The Last of Us is a complete success during its nine episodes. Our review (without spoilers).
Humanity and nothing but humanity: there was never any question of anything else in The Last of Us, the cult PlayStation game based on a zombie apocalypse. The HBO adaptation, episode 1 of which is available this Monday, January 16, 2023 on Prime Video, takes up all its poetic essence. If the first three episodes had already conquered us so much that we devoted a first chronicle to it, the complete season of nine episodes confers on the masterpiece. A powerful artistic proposition that touches the heart and guts — whether or not you’ve played the game before.
The Last of Us immediately overwhelmed with emotion. From the introduction, everything collapses for Joel and for the rest of humanity: the cordyceps, an infectious fungus, mutates to the point of transforming any individual into a kind of ferocious zombie, an “infected”. We feel this implosion, the beating heart, through the stupefied gaze of Sarah, her daughter. This is the initial shock of the work. In the space of a few moments, the world no longer makes sense. Twenty years later, Joel finds himself entrusted with the care of a child, Ellie, 14, the only person known to be immune. Together, they will cross a hostile America during a journey where hope and despair collide in chaos.
But how can you hope for anything in such a broken world? The title of the work already says a lot: there is nothing left, except us. It is the strange poetry of a humanity laid bare by its own collapse. Crumbled walls, a destroyed society, but survivors who remain, lonely by the absence of common sense. Ellie and Joel’s journey is a quest to reconnect with what has been most dearly lost: the humble innocence of human bonds, new and old. There is all the power of The Last of Us as a post-apocalyptic road trip, an observation that already applied to the game and which infuses just as brilliantly into the series.
The Last of Us is an intimate adaptation
The adaptation developed by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann not only follows the same framework as the game, it extends it, rewrites it in part, rethinks it so that only the singular beauty remains. An aesthetic beauty, first, because the work of HBO has a prodigious artistic touch – with radical, organic cinematography. An intimate beauty, then, thanks to a minimalist writing from which come all the raw emotions that cross us in each episode.
The choice of a staging sifting the violence of the game and substituting tension for action bears witness to this. Not to reduce its realism or brutality, but on the contrary to accentuate its strength. In The Last of Us, there is no trivial violent act. This violence is nonetheless present, sometimes extreme. It hovers in the atmosphere and only intervenes at key moments, with a tenfold shock. Another testimony to this minimalism: the role of zombies is also diminished. Sequences, however mirrors to those of the game, suppress them or reduce their abundance. The infected represent a very rare, but latent, and trying threat when it presents itself (in numbers or not).
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, a moving duo
Each episode is a moving post-apocalyptic painting, on a human scale, telling its own story, its own community of destinies, within a larger painting. And everything rests on the characters that make up this fresco. If the series extends its focus more widely than the game, beyond Joel and Ellie, the latter remain the beating heart of the story. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey perform a duo whose alchemy becomes more and more poignant as it builds. Their relationship, almost hostile at the beginning, gradually reveals a striking tenderness and seriousness.
“I’m afraid of ending up alone. »
The two characters overcome the slow elegy of their journey by forging a human bond that is as silent as it is filled with love. From a first shared laugh, in the middle of the season, follow other small moments, looks, acts scattered over an endless survival. The Last of Us is not a series that entertains or even tells: it shows, takes us on its journey forward.
Ellie will only verbalize her greatest fear once, the same as in the game: ” I’m afraid of ending up alone. But the talented Bella Ramsey doesn’t just utter this phrase, she carries it with her, even in the intricacies of her interpretation. Just as Pedro Pascal demonstrates great acting by managing to carry his fractured soul and bruised body through and through, endlessly testing us with all the nuances, good and bad, of his character. .
Of course The Last of Us captivating, so much the narration is supported, that the refined – but full – writing immerses us as close as possible to the emotion, and that the destinies matter to us carnally. The end leaves us orphans of a journey as beautiful as it is oppressive. Like the game from which it is adapted, for oddly very different reasons, the series is an artistic tour de force that leaves a lasting mark on both a cultural and individual scale.
The verdict
We liked
- Stunning cinematography, indie style
- Perfect Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey
- Changes and additions are welcome
- Human, intimate, powerful post-apo
- The music of Gustavo Santaolalla
Released in 2013 on PlayStation, The Last of Us quickly acquired the reputation of a masterpiece. For the first time in the history of video games, its adaptation is also a masterpiece. Between a splendid and organic cinematography, the always melancholy compositions of Gustavo Santaolalla, the overwhelming intimate writing carried by a cast with such a carnal interpretation, the HBO series has everything of an “author’s series”. An extraordinary artistic proposal that lays bare humanity by embracing what the post-apocalypse has to offer about… us.
It goes without saying that HBO redefines from A to Z the specifications of a video game adaptation, proving that only a singular artistic touch can transform this format into a successful non-interactive work.
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