This Thursday, January 9, the streaming platform Netflix is releasing a brand new original series online. On the menu: violence, blood, wolves and shootings!
At the start of 2025, and while the second season of its flagship series Squid Game achieves viewing records, the streaming platform Netflix invites its subscribers on a little trip back in time with the western At the dawn of America. A big production imagined by the co-writer of The Revenantthe film which earned Leonardo DiCaprio his first and only Oscar to date, and directed by Peter Berg, the creator of the brilliant series Friday Night Lights. A winning formula? Télé-Loisirs gives you some answers.
At the dawn of America : What does the series with Taylor Kitsch and Betty Gilpin say?
Mid-19th century, in a United States still wild and undermined by the violence of the conquest of the West. With her disabled son, Devin (Preston Mota), Sara Rowell (Betty Gilpin) embarked on a dangerous journey across states to reunite with her husband. Determined and seeming as much to escape as to pursue something, she has obviously planned everything: the necessary money, the route and the contacts that will help her achieve her goal. And she doesn’t seem to want to back down from anything. But Sara probably didn’t imagine having to face everything that awaits her. The country is in fact in the grip of unprecedented violence: that of the Mormons ready to do any atrocities to found their new promised land, that of the Indians forced into violence in the face of the oppression of the white man, that of the bounty hunters blinded by the prospect of a reward, that of human nature, that of the wild and surrounding nature. Fortunately, in their quest, Sara and Devin will be able to count on the help of Isaac (Taylor Kitsch), a mysterious man of few words…
At the dawn of America : Should you watch the Netflix series with Taylor Kitsch and Betty Gilpin? Our opinion
With At the dawn of Americadirector Peter Berg reunites with Taylor Kitsch, his favorite actor in the series Friday Night Lights. No more American football, the creator and his actor this time plunge into a spectacular and very violent epic in the heart of the United States of the 19th century. And it is precisely this physical violence (with lots of disturbing sound effects) but also psychological violence, regularly gripping the guts and the eyes – with Berg’s obvious know-how in the matter – which impresses in the series. Unfortunately, behind this veneer, as beautiful as it is harsh, and despite the unusual performances of Kitsch and the brilliant Betty Gilpin, this 6-episode miniseries is ultimately unsurprising (the sacrificial path…), often slipping in its writing ( while the series follows a journey, it gives the paradoxical impression of never really moving forward and developing its plot!) and reveals itself in fine deeply superficial. At the dawn of America unfortunately leaves a taste of frustration…
