Escape at Dannemora: Boredom Is a Dangerous Thing

Another day at the prison

The seven-part 2018 series dramatises the circumstances around the 2015 breakout from Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Paul Dano plays David Sweat, Benicio del Toro plays Richard Matt, and Tilly supervises work in the prison's tailoring shop. Ben Stiller directs, with Brett Johnson and Michael Tolkin behind the writing and creation of the series.

That gives you the setup. What makes it worth watching is how convincingly it establishes the lives around the scheme. These people have routines, grudges, small comforts and very limited horizons. The prison feels like a workplace as well as a place of confinement, complete with the sort of familiarity that lets bad habits go unquestioned. A procedure can still exist on paper long after anyone has stopped thinking about why it matters.

I liked how much of the tension comes out of that. There is no need for a succession of brilliant masterminds on both sides. The people with authority have become comfortable, and comfort makes them predictable. The men looking for an opening have a reason to notice what everybody else has learned to ignore.

Outside the prison, life hardly looks exhilarating either. The cold and the worn-down surroundings make the daily grind feel particularly relentless. You can understand the appeal of a little attention or the promise of something different, even when the person offering it is plainly someone you should not trust. That is a much more interesting starting point than simply asking how anyone could be foolish enough to get involved.

Tilly is the reason to watch

Arquette gets so much out of Tilly's dissatisfaction. She is irritable, needy, self-important and vulnerable, sometimes within the same conversation. There is an uncomfortable gap between the life she has and the person she would like to imagine herself being. Arquette lets you see it without turning her into a collection of symptoms.

What I particularly liked was how completely she belongs in this setting. Tilly looks and sounds like somebody who has been going to this job for years. Her impatience has a familiar, well-practised quality. She can make an ordinary exchange feel unpleasant before anything especially unpleasant has been said. Then a little interest changes the temperature, and you begin to see how much that interest matters to her.

It would have been easy to make her a joke. There is certainly room to laugh at her, and some of the awkwardness is painfully funny, but the performance goes further. Her capacity to persuade herself is as important as anyone else's ability to persuade her. She wants a version of events in which she is desirable, significant and entitled to more. Watching her reach for that version is fascinating.

Eric Lange, as her husband Lyle, adds to the sense of a life that has settled into habits neither person seems equipped to improve. Their domestic world is convincingly unexciting. It gives Tilly's restlessness somewhere to come from, without needing her to explain herself in a tidy speech.

For me, Arquette steals the show. Dano and del Toro have the more obvious thriller material, but she makes the ordinary human weaknesses behind it feel every bit as compelling.

Two men with something to work towards

Dano is excellent as Sweat. He has a concentrated, watchful quality that suits a man with very good reasons to keep assessing his surroundings. You get the sense of someone turning a problem over, working out what is possible and taking the practical difficulties seriously. I found that focus very satisfying to watch against the general air of people simply getting through the day.

Del Toro brings a different sort of confidence to Matt. He is more comfortable occupying the space around other people, testing a response and working out what might be useful. The contrast gives the pair texture. Their resourcefulness doesn't have to look identical for you to believe they could find advantages in the same situation.

This was a large part of the appeal for me: two men applying themselves to an audacious objective in a place where so much behaviour has become automatic. Every person has habits. Some want an easier day, some want attention, some enjoy a little status. The writing makes those wants part of the practical problem. A human weakness can be as relevant as a physical obstacle.

There is pleasure in following that kind of thinking. You start considering what a conversation might buy someone, or how a relationship could change the options available to them. The interest lies in the connections between things. A small interaction can matter because of the particular people involved, rather than because the script suddenly declares it important.

That doesn't make Matt and Sweat harmless men to cheer on unreservedly. It does make their determination gripping television. The series can let you appreciate ingenuity without requiring you to forget who is exercising it. Dano and del Toro keep enough unease in their performances for that distinction to remain present.