On Screen: “The Madison”
The Madison
“The Madison” marks the most-watched first season launch for any Taylor Sheridan series (“Yellowstone,” “Tulsa King,” “Landman,” “Marshals”) garnering eight million views globally in its first 10 days on Paramount+.
Meet the Clyburns. They’re a wealthy Manhattan-based family forced to face their worst fears. As matriarch and self-described Big Apple “city mouse” Stacy (Michelle Pfeiffer) notes, “Mine is not a family designed to withstand tragedy.”
In southwest Montana, Preston Clyburn (Kurt Russell) and his brother Paul (Matthew Fox) love fly-fishing on the picturesque Madison River. Reclusive Paul lives there full time but financial whiz Preston only visits occasionally, although it’s where he finds quietude and peace of mind.
Preston and his pampered wife Stacy have two shallow, outrageously spoiled grown daughters — neurotic, divorced Abigail (Beau Garrett), raising two young girls: teenage Bridgette (Amish Miller) and precocious pre-teen Macy (Alaina Pollack) — and younger, perpetually pouting Paige (Elle Chapman), an event planner who is married to hapless Russell McIntosh (Patrick J. Adams).
When tragedy strikes, grieving Stacy takes the entire family into the Montana wilderness, where they discover how simpler, slower and more serene life is in the rustic West, as evidenced by encounters with a sincere, salt-of-the-earth cowboy neighbor Cade Harris (Kevin Zegers) and a hunky sheriff’s deputy, widower Van Davis (Ben Schnetzer).
Superficially, there’s lots of urban vs. rural conflict. Thematically, it’s all about responsibility and relationships.
Propelling the plot, Michelle Pfeiffer is magnificent, delving into the mixed emotions that grief inevitably evokes, evidenced as she consults with laid-back psychotherapist Dr. Phil Yorn (Will Arnett). While Kurt Russell struggles to match Pfeiffer’s intensity, that’s difficult, perhaps because his role is revealed in flashbacks.
Somewhat simplistically scripted by Taylor Sheridan and deftly directed by veteran cinematographer Christina Alexandra Voros, every episode is filled with glorious vistas of the natural world, and the series has already been renewed for a second season.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Madison” is an elegiac 8 — with all six episodes streaming on Paramount+ now.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.