I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE: Great Series, Excellent Ruffalo!

If one were ever to create a ranking of the darkest, most life-draining series, the first place could, without hesitation, be reserved for I Know This Much Is True. It is better not to watch this HBO production when at an emotional crossroads and one’s faith in the meaning of everything is as fragile as a reed.

Attention! The text contains details about the plot of the miniseries.

The six-episode miniseries is an adaptation of Wally Lamb’s book of the same title. There was not much hype surrounding it, the marketing machine passed unnoticed by the eyes and ears of many viewers, which is a shame, because in the nonsense presented there is sense, and the dark tale of twin brothers marked by fate can bring one down to earth, help in finding one’s place, and above all support the acceptance of fate, to which, for some reason, we assign rational qualities.

The story is spread across several timelines so that viewers can become acquainted with the most important events in the lives of the Birdsey twins. It begins at the moment of their birth, as one is born in December 1949 and the other a few minutes later in January 1950. Then comes a difficult childhood under the eye of a brutal stepfather and withdrawn mother, the college years when they try to separate from each other, and later their paths cross again when Thomas’s condition worsens. The boy’s mind has been filled by his mother with biblical phrases about guilt, punishment, and a sinful world, and he also struggles with forming interpersonal relationships, until it turns out that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

Dominick, on the other hand, battles with himself – sometimes trying to get as far away from the family as possible, sometimes wanting to live as close to his brother as he can, to be his rock, defender, and guardian at every moment of life. Of course, his love for Thomas is constantly put to the test, because it is hard to be around someone all the time who is highly sensitive, absorbs the darkness of reality entirely, and constantly looks for conspiracies, wiretaps, and an approaching apocalypse. Not to mention the self-destructive urges that culminate in cutting off his own hand as a form of redemption for the sins of the world.

The roles are as extreme as possible, but thanks to Mark Ruffalo’s phenomenal performance, success is fully achieved. Playing both brothers, the actor can be convincing both as an ordinary guy longing for normality and as a mentally disturbed man lost in his own thoughts.

He rarely overacts, instead trying to remain close to the psychology of the characters. He understands who they are, where the differences between them lie, but also where they are alike, because after all, they are twins. Ruffalo displays extraordinary focus. He avoids shock value, cheap attempts to draw tears from the audience, and simply steps into the skin of the characters, whose fate regularly throws obstacles in their path. He is tired, devoid of faith in the meaning of everything, and at the same time moves forward because he has no other choice.

Directing all the episodes, Derek Cianfrance makes excellent use of the source material. He consistently brings viewers closer to successive tragedies in the Birdsey family, skillfully slowing down and speeding up the narrative. He delights in moments where seemingly nothing happens – when the camera stares into a character’s face and there is a very slow zoom, allowing all the emotions that people carry deep in their hearts to come to the surface. Since honest confessions rarely occur, the creator uses the image to try to extract what is hidden in the subconscious, suppressed by guilt and the fear of a head-on collision with traumatic memories.

Theoretically, the premise of the series is to present the final chords of one brother’s life, but in practice, over six hours, several extremely important threads are raised, concerning not only the nature of human relationships but also the psychiatric care system and the psychopathic side of politics conducted by leaders seen on television.

When Dominick reads the manuscript left by his grandfather, flashbacks from the lives of earlier family members appear. It turns out that Domenico Tempesta came to the USA from Sicily, made his fortune in a mad way, caused his brother’s death, and along the way bought himself a wife along with her sister, which brought a curse upon his lineage. The grandfather’s story is terrifying, repulsive, devoid of any ambiguity.

Domenico’s fear of conspiracies passes to the mentally ill Thomas, who also sees bloody plots everywhere. On this occasion, the creators take a surprising turn, often granting the character some measure of being right. It turns out that his crazy theories come true, even though he is unable to function normally in society and perceives reality through the prism of a distorted mirror lodged in his mind. In this way, an important question arises as to the extent to which the psychiatric care system helps such people return to health. Or rather – where the boundary between health and illness lies, when a supposedly crazy person judges the world more accurately.

Can such people be disbelieved and simply locked away in institutions to be separated from others forever? Especially since Thomas is right when he warns of the coming Gulf War, when the leader of the country he lives in is too greedy, bloodthirsty, and power-hungry to stop the turbo-capitalist, militaristic machine.

It seems, however, that the most important element of the series is its therapeutic message, as Dominick works through his traumas, wondering whether he was born of an incestuous relationship. I Know This Much Is True is a sum of deliberations on the heredity of sins, family curses, and fate as an inseparable partner in life’s journey. Up to a certain point, the lack of even a slightly more positive outlook on the characters’ fate is jarring, but fortunately, the ending of the HBO production fully compensates for this absence.

The final scenes are the most important and the ones most worth remembering. Each viewer, like Dominick and Thomas Birdsey, may experience successive tragedies, but it is not about picking at wounds with quarrels, frustrations, and then salting them with guilt. It is not fitting to numb oneself with illusory hope, frantically seek the meaning of existence, or drain one’s energy by condemning oneself to imminent self-destruction.

The message of I Know This Much Is True is painfully true and, in its way, moving. One must, like the biblical Job, stand naked before fate, humbly accept its verdicts, and understand that struggling will do nothing. Battles with the world are always doomed to failure, unlike sincere, loving conversation, forgiveness, and asking for forgiveness from those closest to us. Those battles are always victorious.