'GRACE' RARELY FALLS FAR FROM GOOD VIEWING.Byline: David Kronke TV Critic Initially, ``State of Grace'' feels like a wan family sitcom; later, it plays like an overheated o·ver·heat v. o·ver·heat·ed, o·ver·heat·ing, o·ver·heats v.tr. 1. To heat too much. 2. To cause to become excited, agitated, or overstimulated. v.intr. very special episode of an after-school special. Eventually, it settles into its own unique and affecting rhythms. After sitting through a couple of episodes, my own stepdaughters, ages 8 and 11, pronounced themselves surprised at how much they enjoyed it. Set in 1965, it concerns young Hannah Rayburn (Alia Shawkat in the series, though Oscar winner Frances McDormand provides kinda-sorta winsome win·some adj. Charming, often in a childlike or naive way. [Middle English winsum, from Old English wynsum : from wynn, joy; see wen-1 narration from the perspective of an adult), who moves with her uptight Jewish family to North Carolina. There, Hannah befriends the free-spirited Grace McKee (Mae Whitman), who not only helps Hannah relate to her family better (she gets Hannah's father to speak about his time in Nazi concentration camps
Prior to and during World War II, Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps (Konzentrationslager, abbreviated KZ or KL) throughout the territories it controlled. ), but also introduces her to her own family's wealth-inspired dysfunction (Grace's mother, played by Faye Grant, is a socialite and perpetual divorcee di·vor·cée n. A divorced woman. [French, feminine past participle of divorcer, to divorce, from Old French, from divorce, divorce; see divorce. ). McDormand's narration aptly describes Grace's family life as ``a Noel Coward play scripted by Tennessee Williams,'' and if you think about how something like that would play with kids, it doesn't sound particularly promising. One of the film's shortcomings is that characters - and the audience - are expected to respond more to the ostensibly jarring '60s pop music on the soundtrack accompanying the introduction of other characters than they do to the characters themselves. But credit this show with not pandering to, and rightly trusting, its audience: My stepdaughters understood and empathized with the difficult sophistication so·phis·ti·cate v. so·phis·ti·cat·ed, so·phis·ti·cat·ing, so·phis·ti·cates v.tr. 1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly. 2. of the relationships being depicted. Adults may not wholly appreciate its sensibility, at once both a little juvenile and a smidgen unwholesome, but kids, it seems, will get it. ``STATE OF GRACE'' What: Seriocomic se·ri·o·com·ic adj. Both serious and comic. [serio(us) + comic.] se series about a young Jewish girl befriending a privileged WASP girl in North Carolina in the '60s. The stars: Frances McDormand (narrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. ), Alia Shawkat, Mae Whitman. Where: Fox Family Channel. When: 9 p.m. Mondays. Our rating: Three stars CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Alia Shawkat, left, and Mae Whitman play friends coming of age in the 1960s and trying to make sense of their families in ``State of Grace'' on the Fox Family Channel. |
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