Carrie: hypersensitive rereading of Stephen King’s novel (review)

Far from the fury of Brian De Palma’s film, Mike Flanagan takes a tender and empathetic look at the high school student with telekinetic powers, in a series which questions the unbridled violence of American society.

In one of the loveliest scenes of this new adaptation of Carrie, young Carrie White, the teenager with destructive telekinetic powers, widens her eyes as she discovers how a… library works. You should know that, in the version proposed today by Mike Flanagan (creator of The Haunting of Hill House, director of Life of Chuck…) of Stephen King’s very first novel, Carrie sets foot in high school for the first time after having spent her entire life cloistered at home, locked away by conspiratorial and bigoted parents. She’s “a closet kid,” as one of her classmates will say. So Carrie, discovering late in life the habits and customs of life in society, tends to be amazed or worried about everything. And there, in the middle of the school library, wonder reigns supreme. The idea that she will be able to read as many books as she wants makes her overjoyed.

Among the books that she greedily seizes, Flanagan slipped The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid’s Tale) by Margaret Atwood. A nod to the writer who prefaced the reissue of Stephen King’s novel two years ago, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of its publication.