Starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the post-apocalyptic series, The Last of Us has become a commercial and critical phenomenon. The HBO drama brings to life one of the best video game stories of recent years.
The Last of Us is a television series based on the acclaimed PlayStation video game of the same name created by Naughty Dog. With nine fast-paced episodes, the fiction is already considered one of the best drama series of 2023.
In general, it is a meditation on the experience of the survivors of a devastated world and the effort required to overcome tragedy and pain.
HBO assembles an impressive creative team led by Chernobyl filmmaker Craig Mazin and game director Neil Druckmann.
These visionaries have come up with a stunning adaptation, which not only honors the aesthetic aspect of the original content, but deepens the dramatic sense of the story.
What is The Last of Us about?
The Last of Us takes place 20 years after modern society has been dramatically devastated by a strange parasitic fungus called Cordyceps. Just as the fungal infection is discovered, an overwrought mycologist advises the local authorities: “Bomb this city and everyone in it.”
In this dramatic thriller, Cordyceps has all but wiped out civilization, transforming most people into beastly creatures that bite their prey to multiply; the survivors must choose between an existence in quarantine zones run by military forces or almost certain death beyond protected borders.
The Last of Us reflects the dangers and tragedy of a post-epidemic America. Druckmann and Mazin portray a world in ruins in which millions of people have been brutally killed. In this context, large cities are barely shells, stale buildings totter, and the landscape is filled with downtrodden workers, contagious monsters, and sadistic gangs. People do what they can to survive, but hope for a better future pales.
Our protagonists: Joel and Ellie
Pedro Pascal plays Joel, a fierce and experienced survivor who lives in Boston’s quarantine zone, where he does all kinds of maintenance work and smuggling. Life there is regimented, rudimentary and very tough.
Eventually, Joel is hired to protect Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a fourteen-year-old teenager, whom he must transport to a scientific base in the western United States. The young girl, immune to Cordyceps, could be the key to humanity’s survival. As you might expect, what starts out as a small job suddenly turns into an odyssey. Together they will have to cross a devastated country and dangers will stalk them in unthinkable ways.
Undoubtedly, the centerpiece of the series is the bond that forms between Joel and Ellie. Both have suffered enough to distrust life and fate. Both carry with them a piercing past that they have not been able to overcome.
Joel is a man tormented by grief. After losing his only daughter, he has buried his humanity in the thickest darkness. Ellie, on the other hand, is a sarcastic orphan raised by the system in place. Born after the Cordyceps outbreak, she has little notion of the world that once existed; everything precipitates when Joel and Ellie are cornered by the direst of circumstances.
From the beginning, Joel tries to remain emotionally distant from Ellie. For the smuggler, the teenager is nothing more than a cargo to be transported. However, throughout the journey, the protector and protégée influence each other and begin to become a family of sorts. Despite the chaos, life offers them a peculiar opportunity.
The evolution and transformation of the stellar duo is profound, funny, and heartfelt. When living becomes too painful, one pushes off the other and that’s how they endure hopelessness. Joel may not even suspect it, but Ellie is the path to his redemption.
Actors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey achieve sharp and poignant performances. Ramsey captures the childlike soul and yet works her way into maturity with sufficient grit and courage. Pascal, hardened and silent, is devastating. There is a chemistry between Pascal and Ramsey that works and transcends the screen. The actors play off each other well and their connection is beautifully complex.
The Adaptation
Video game adaptations have a very bad reputation. A couple of animations aside, Hollywood has had serious problems turning games into insightful and deep movies or series. However, The Last of Us may be the rare exception we’ve been waiting for. Everything seems to point to the fact that the creators of this drama managed to overcome the “video game curse.”
The Last of Us tells much of the same story, but does so in a unique and new way. Instead of limiting itself to the familiar, the fiction takes intelligent liberties, while remaining faithful to the original material.
In this regard, the show retains the premise and the main characters, while telling us something fresh and challenging. Druckmann and Mazin have taken the original idea and made it more impactful and deeper in its nuances. There are changes, certainly there are, but the heart remains the same.
The show gives the narrative the opportunity to stretch and breathe as it is supposed to. The nine-episode structure favors the dimension of the plot and the evolution of the main characters.
Verdict: Not to be missed
The Last of Us is a tense, melancholic and violent fiction capable of capturing the attention of both die-hard fans and new viewers.
Although at first glance it may seem that we are facing another “zombie” and “end times” story, the HBO drama seeks to explore delicate and sensitive themes such as survival, loss and grief, growth and hope.
The program is far from focusing on hordes and slaughter, nor does it reflect entirely “good” or “bad” characters, most are simply navigating the difficulties and ambivalence of a collapsed society. Overall, loss is a dominant theme. And it’s not just about loss of life; the show also examines the loss of social systems and human values, and even the loss of one’s own identity in a stark world.
The story of Joel and Ellie recalls bold and sweeping works such as The Road and Children of Men that have tackled similar plots in the past.
Druckmann and Mazin use a post-epidemic context, marked by devastation, savagery, oppression and decadence, to reflect on the value of life and civilization as we know it.
It lingers in the mind, the fearful idea of the violence we humans can orchestrate against other humans, when survival is the only thing that matters. However, the background of it all makes us think about the relevance of conscience, morality, emotional ties, empathy, companionship, solidarity, kindness, and compassion.
While waiting for the closure of the first season, it is very gratifying to know that The Last of Us has been renewed for a new installment. On January 27, 2023 HBO confirmed that Joel and Ellie will continue their journey.