Parents' Guide to Lord of the Flies

Beautifully filmed and totally intense, this adaptation of the classic dystopian novel of English schoolboys let loose on an island has never looked better—or been more nerve-shatteringly gripping. Netflix's Lord of the Flies limited series reconceptualizes the book's approach by dividing the story into four chapters, each built around (and telling the story from) a single character: Piggy, Jack, Simon, and Ralph. It's a solid Rashomon-y approach, although instead of four characters going back over the same series of events, we instead view the ongoing narrative first through the viewpoint of one, then another. Readers who are already familiar with the book's plot will recognize that the character order is important, starting with civility and winding up with sheer feral chaos; the stress of Lord of the Flies ramps up similarly, as the rules from back home fall away and unthinking savagery rises and then reigns.

Filmed mostly in Malaysia in a tropical locale equipped with rocky mountains and dense green forest, Lord of the Flies stays mostly true to the book's narrative and cast terrific young actors who bring the story to life. Lox Pratt's Jack is the best of the bunch, combining a gung-ho nerviness that makes the story's increasing tension feel powerful and real with an underlying sadness; one beautiful moment in Jack's episode provides an emotional underpinning that renders the story's tragic turn all the more painful. Boasting that his father is sure to save all the boys soon, Jack is undercut by Simon, who flatly tells him they both have uninterested fathers who aren't coming to save their kids. "But their fathers are better," Simon says, inclining his head toward the rest of the crowd. This adaptation does what the best ones do: it honors the source material and then some, turning a great story into a feast for the senses and emotions. You'll be glad to be cast away with this Lord of the Flies.