There’s no getting rid of that in our DNA and how we’re constructed, and that’s what this explores: what happiness and freedom is, and can you have one without the other?”
“The idea that if we are distracted enough or connected enough in a technological way then we’ll feel more enriched and closer, whereas in fact… there’s nothing like being in a room with someone or being able to hug and interact with the people that you love. “There’s something about tearing ourselves apart and putting ourselves back together and a connection with technology,” she says.
I think the show goes deeper than the book in terms of allowing us to see these characters find the words and tools to deal with emotions for the first time that they’ve never had.”īrown Findlay notes that, although Huxley’s Brave New World was written for a post-Depression audience, the series explores themes that are relevant to today’s world. Bernard’s relationship with Lenina is explored further and deeper and what their time in the Savagelands does to them and compounds these feelings of loneliness. The book is a wonderful exploration of a society, of a moment in an imagined future, but our one goes on more of a progression and challenges that society more. “It’s a more character-led, emotionally driven story than you get in the book. “All of the characters have a bit more depth, and they’re all a bit more challenged,” he says. Lloyd appreciates the changes the television version of Brave New World has made to the characters of Bernard and Lenina, among others. But then actually, I’m feeling these strange sentiments of loneliness, and I don’t have the words for it: you need an orange.” So a little blue, a little violet when you’re waiting for a bus or something, but then someone brushes your shoulder - oh, I’ll need a green for that one. It’s the distance you feel from your true, happily contented center. And ultimately, it’s the level of anxiety. “So everyone has access to a blue, and indigo, a violet, a green. He has the oranges and the yellows… it’s the colors of the rainbow,” says Lloyd. “Bernard is a counselor, and he has access to the higher grade soma. Part of what provides the artificial contentment for the caste-based society of New London is the drug soma, which Bernard is able to dispense as needed in Brave New World. “And more things happen which explores that crack… Are these similar things happening for a reason? Are they all connected? Why is Indra allowing these things or why can Indra not control these things? This is part of the broader questions that the whole series asks.” And Lenina’s been doing that, too,” Lloyd explains. “There has been this trend towards solipsism and thinking and looking in the mirror and wondering and things that no one does in this society. The irony, of course, is that Bernard wants Lenina for himself, but he also notices a pattern of dissatisfaction elsewhere in his role as counselor. In the book sometimes she gets lost, and in this she really comes into her own.”īrave New World Review: Dystopia Fatigue By Michael Ahr
Those depths come to Lenina as we travel with her through the story, and she’s certainly so much more complex than in the book. It’s who it is, how and when you meet, what you discover about yourself before you meet them. But… it’s not just one person that will fix it. “I think at first she thinks maybe if it’s just one person - this taboo idea of monogamy - then I’ll be able to connect with someone in the way that I secretly know I really want to. After all, in the “social body” of New London everyone belongs to everyone else! “At the beginning we’re really seeing her exploring how to get a deeper connection with someone,” says Brown Findlay. We spoke with the pair recently about their characters’ personal journeys as their Utopian existence crumbles during the course of the series.īrave New World opens with Bernard calling Lenina to his office over concerns she’s spending too much time with one man. Two of the main characters who immediately begin to question whether their supposed happiness in New London is truly fulfilling are Bernard Marx, the Alpha Plus counselor played by Harry Lloyd ( Legion), and Lenina Crowne, the Beta Plus fertility specialist played by Jessica Brown Findlay ( Downton Abbey). “Everybody’s happy now,” is the familiar refrain from Aldous Huxley’s classic novel Brave New World, and the phrase becomes the central irony of the adaptation on the new Peacock streaming service.
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