Hawke has always been an interesting performer, but in The Good Lord Bird I literally could not take my eyes off of him. By the time the final episode ends, we get the sense that we knew John Brown, and that, whether or not we agree with everything he did, we understood him. Hawke’s presence is simultaneously enormous and understated, dominating every scene without necessarily controlling it. His manic bouts feel genuine, his unwavering devotion to his God and his cause extremely believable. Despite these peaks and valleys of incandescence and serenity, John Brown never feels like a contradiction, or (gasp) a character in a television show. And in the very next moment, he becomes a quiet, thoughtful, almost adorably confused old man who doesn’t quite have all his wits about him. In one moment, he’s electrifying a group of his followers with explosively intense speeches or terrifying a batch of slave owners with bursts of ruthless violence. Ethan Hawke’s performance as John Brown is captivating, and is easily some of the best work he has ever done.
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