Say Nothing Review: FX's Well-Made Limited Series Is a Timely Look Back at the Troubles

FX releasing Say Nothing so soon after Election Day is interesting timing. The limited series is an elegiac drama about the psychological toll of political violence, told in such a way that its perpetrators are not heroes or villains, just people clinging to the idea that what they're doing is right, to paraphrase a line from the show. There probably aren't many American viewers looking for this kind of heavy entertainment at the moment, but those who do check it out will find a well-made, thought-provoking story about ideology and disillusionment. It's not being made and released with just America in mind, though. This is a story about Northern Ireland. 

Say Nothing is a narrative adaptation of the 2018 nonfiction book of the same name by Patrick Radden Keefe. It tells the story of several Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers in Belfast fighting for the cause of Irish unification during the Troubles, the decades-long period of violent conflict between republican paramilitaries and British forces in British-controlled Northern Ireland. It primarily follows Dolours Price, one of the IRA's most well-known figures, played as a fierce and charismatic young woman by Lola Petticrew and in tired and disappointed middle age by Maxine Peake. Dolours is a fascinating character, a brilliant and beautiful woman who could have left Belfast and done anything she wanted, but chose to stay and fight for a just cause in a divisive and destructive way.

Dolours' story spans from the late 1960s to the 2010s, charting her rapid rise through the IRA's ranks alongside her sister, Marian (Hazel Doupe), their ill-fated bombing mission in London in 1973 and subsequent incarceration in British prison, and Dolours' subsequent pain and resentment as her former commanding officer Gerry Adams (Josh Finan as a young man, Michael Colgan as an older one) becomes a political leader and pursues what she sees as appeasement with Britain and betrayal of his former comrades by denying his involvement in the IRA. The fighting stops, but Ireland is still not unified, and Dolours questions if any of the violence she committed was worth it, especially since the worst of it was committed against her own people. Woven through Dolours' story is the haunting tale of Jean McConville (Judith Roddy), a widowed mother of 10 who was abducted by IRA soldiers, who suspected her of being an informant, and never seen again. (Gerry Adams has always denied being a member of the IRA or participating in any IRA-related violence, and also denies any involvement in the abduction of Jean McConville.) 

8.2

Say Nothing

at Hulu

Like

• Smart adaptation
• High production value
• Nuanced themes

Dislike

• Flawed dialogue

The New Yorker writer Keefe is one of the world's best journalists, and his unbiased and meticulously researched book observes complex characters and places them into a gripping narrative. Show creator Josh Zetumer, an American, makes the wise decision to closely follow Keefe's blueprint for tone and structure while creating a compelling episodic structure. In the early-to-middle episodes, he gives the story the momentum of a thriller, with espionage subplots, thrilling escapes, and explosive urban warfare. The later episodes slow down and settle into a more mournful character drama. The high point of the season is a powerful one-two punch of standalone episodes, one following Dolours as she leads a mission to plant and detonate car bombs in London and is captured, followed by a harrowing account of her and Marian's 208-day hunger strike, which lasted so long because they were torturously force-fed. The first episode is a tense thriller, and the second is an emotionally affecting drama, showing how many notes there are to hit in this story. 

Visually, the show overachieves. Other productions set in the '70s and '80s should find out what combination of post-production effects Say Nothing's lead director Michael Lennox used. The show doesn't look like it's trying to imitate the look of film; it actually looks like it was shot on film, with convincing grain and glow. The production design and costumes are thoughtfully considered. The production value overall is impressive, as are the performances. Petticrew is dynamic as young Dolours, and budding Northern Irish star Anthony Boyle, previously seen in Apple TV+'s historical limited series Manhunt and Masters of the Air, has leading man charisma as charming and dangerous IRA true believer Brendan "The Dark" Hughes. 

The show's most glaring flaw is some under-polished dialogue. Someone should have flagged that an Irish woman in the early 1990s would not have used the baseball-derived idiom "touch base," or that the expression "pick your brain" is contemporary American business jargon that sounds wrong coming from the mouth of someone in Belfast in the early 1980s. There are numerous examples of grating anachronism. But there's a lot of clear and punchy dialogue, too. Of her mother, who was an officer in the IRA's equivalent of a ladies' auxiliary, Dolours says, "My mummy knew everything about those guns, except what it felt like to fire one. That was strictly for the men."

The Troubles were a time of great political division. I can't pretend to know how Say Nothing will be received in Ireland and the U.K., where the history of the Troubles still resonates, and people will have a better sense of how the story has been massaged for dramatic effect. But here in America, it's a timely reminder of the inevitable human cost of political conflict. 

Premieres: Thursday, Nov. 14 on Hulu with all nine episodes
Who's in it: Lola Petticrew, Hazel Doupe, Anthony Boyle, Josh Finan, Maxine Peake
Who's behind it: Josh Zetumer (creator), Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson (executive producers)
For fans of: Irish history, nuance
How many episodes we watched: 9 of 9