{"id":8087484,"date":"2026-10-01T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/?p=8087484"},"modified":"2026-09-29T14:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T21:30:19","slug":"east-of-eden-review-florence-pugh-zoe-kazan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/reviews\/east-of-eden-review-florence-pugh-zoe-kazan\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018East of Eden\u2019 Review: Florence Pugh Astounds as Steinbeck\u2019s Wickedest Villain in Vast Netflix Retelling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

This is not your grandfather\u2019s \u201cEast of Eden\u201d<\/a> and that\u2019s no joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seven-hour adaptation of John Steinbeck\u2019s epic novel that actress Zoe Kazan scripted and co-produced for Netflix is quite a departure from her grandpa Elia\u2019s 1955 CinemaScope movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The series covers the whole, decades-long narrative, not just its final year during World War I. The younger Kazan treats her characters with humanistic sensitivity for the most part, eschewing the florid Method melodrama her elder favored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wouldn\u2019t infer that Zoe intended to out-icon Elia\u2019s use of James Dean here. But if she had, mission damn close to accomplished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Florence Pugh in “East of Eden.” (Credit: Geoffrey Short\/Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pugh brings all she\u2019s got to reluctant Salinas Valley farm wife Cathy turned Kate, the wickedest brothel madame west of the Sierras. You can\u2019t take your eyes off the actress whatever dolled-up, beat-up or stone cold real condition the character is in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cathy is considered one of the great villains of American literature, and Pugh glories in every deceitful, manipulative, murderous impulse Steinbeck dreamed up and then some. But more compelling in Kazan\u2019s intuitive interpretation, she\u2019s a fierce and cunning fighter for her own agency. Schooled from early adolescence in the lustful ways of men, Cathy\/Kate maintains moral rationalizations that, hypocritical as it may be for a weaponizing quick learner, puts viewers on her side far more often than good people ought to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pugh does this to us with overt and subtle skills that complement Cathy\u2019s sociopath-as-turn-of-the-century-sex-kitten bag of tricks. She rarely overemphasizes anything that\u2019s not a physical act, and thereby relatably unveils the woman\u2019s psyche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The coolest contradiction the actress brings to the role is a core honesty that reveals Cathy\u2019s real motives, no matter how sweet or pliant she pretends to be. Pugh can strike a marvelous, dazed stance when Cathy is honest with some lovestruck bastard who won\u2019t believe her. Later moments of guilt-ridden dementia aren\u2019t quite as effective \u2014 beautiful monsters are just more fun than handsomely aging ones \u2014 but Pugh\u2019s full commitment to any business at hand is never to be questioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Florence Pugh in “East of Eden.” (Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And she looks incredible in Kirsty Cameron\u2019s late Victorian and Edwardian costumes. As well as out of them. The show\u2019s plentiful carnal activities are graphic and quite kinkier than Steinbeck probably imagined, and way more than a 1950s filmmaker would have been permitted to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether you find that excessive or not, it adds crucial spice to Zoe\u2019s ambitious project. She wanted to tell the whole, 600-page doorstop of a book\u2019s tale, and she does dutifully. Thrillingly too, whenever Pugh is onscreen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is about half the time. The rest is a male weepy that can play like homework, often failing to sell the angst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u201cEast
Mike Faist, Christopher Abbott and Florence Pugh in \u201cEast of Eden.\u201d (Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mike Faist brings a little roiling danger to the role of Charles Trask, but he\u2019s essentially written-out by Episode 3. As his sibling \u2014 and the main protagonist of this piece \u2014 Adam Trask, Christopher Abbott internalizes pain to the point of catatonia, so that when he does lash out it\u2019s nothing like Raymond Massey\u2019s holy terror of 1955.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam and Charles are the older generation of resentful Trask brothers here, and however dreary matters can get, it is rewarding to see how their conflicts and compromises filter down to the twins, Cal and Aron, that the movie focused on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Dean played Adam\u2019s less-loved son in the best-known adaptation of the painfully biblical allegory \u2014 then died, only to live forever. Let us be gentle, then, toward young Joseph Zada, who does his best to embody bad-seeded Cal beneath the martyred legend\u2019s shadow. Richard Avalos was hardly as memorable as the movie\u2019s Aron, but in 2026 the \u201cgood son\u2019s\u201d dissolution somehow seems more abrupt and superficial. Joe Anders, who plays him, was more affecting in Apple TV\u2019s sleaze-a-thon expansion of \u201cCape Fear\u201d earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""A
Hoon Lee in “East of Eden.” (Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The series\u2019 sole compelling masculine role benefits from a bit of Zoe\u2019s flexibly feminism. Hoon Lee, who consistently registers the best performance on \u201cYour Friends and Neighbors,\u201d plays Lee. He\u2019s the Chinese-American servant Steinbeck assigned to raise Cal and Aron after Cathy ran away soon after their birth. He performs both mom and dad duties while Adam mopes around for years, cooking and nurturing and handing down emotional wisdom as well as that from the vast number of books he\u2019s read. Kazan rightfully expands his story while Lee the actor keeps the character real enough to, for the most part, move past Magical Asian cliches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With an observant, calm voice, Lee recounts racist horrors and less macro aggressions that plagued his and his people\u2019s lives. His angry outbursts are few but rattling, and while he lets the oblivious \u2014 or are they simply uninterested? \u2014 white guys know how much of his own ambitions he\u2019s sacrificed for them, the man\u2019s love for the boys and their exasperating father never really falters. It\u2019s a tricky role that Lee navigates magnificently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, like Pugh\u2019s, it\u2019s a midcentury characterization of a twice-as-old archetype filtered through 2020s sensibilities. Done with a preference for naturalistic presentation, this feels like a valid way to update a key American generational saga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""Two
Joe Anders and Joseph Zada in “East of Eden.” (Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like some of its drama, the new production\u2019s impeccably evoked era and settings can look a bit hemmed-in compared to the lavish, boom-or-bust California the movie created. TV budgets \u2014 and \u201cEast of Eden\u201d clearly had a nice one \u2014 can\u2019t account for the visual genius it takes to turn an ice house into a repository of furtive desire and bad business decisions, or make a stalled Ferris Wheel pregnant with wayward possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But things change, even as old patterns sort of repeat along with them. That\u2019s always been what happens in \u201cEast of Eden\u201d and in the nation it examines through one family\u2019s fortunes and follies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zoe Kazan is of course aware of her talented, beloved grandpa\u2019s besmirched reputation: Elia named names during the Communist witch hunts. She\u2019s made her Steinbeck adaptation, while striving to do the novel full justice, her own stubborn thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all rather typically, and more than a little admirably, American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEast of Eden\u201d is now streaming on Netflix.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n