‘I Know This Much Is True’ Is Based on an Epic, 900-Page, Oprah-Endorsed Book
I Know This Much Is True is HBO's latest prestige miniseries.
Starring Mark Ruffalo and written/directed by Derek Cianfrance, it's based on Wally Lamb's 1998 novel of the same name.
The 900+ page book was a June 1998 entry of Oprah's Book Club.
HBO's long tradition of Sunday night drama continues this week, as the prestige cable giant debuts I Know This Much Is True, a limited series that features Mark Ruffalo as the headliner—playing twins. The six-part limited series comes from writer/director Derek Cianfrance, best known for his movies The Place Beyond The Pines and Blue Valentine. The biggest difference, though, is that those projects, though, is that rather than be based upon his own original script, this series was adapted from author Wally Lamb's 900+ page book of the same name.
The crux of I Know This Much Is True centers on the twins being played by Ruffalo. One, Dominick, is the story's narrator; his brother, Thomas—significantly larger due to the medication he takes—suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and is often subject to volatile behavior. All of this is outlined in Lamb's book, which is what drew Cianfrance to the project.
The director's previous projects have focused intently on different family functions. The Place Beyond The Pines looks at the complex relationships in a handful of different father-son pairings, and what that means to different people. Blue Valentine closely examines the dissolution of a romantic relationship. In the book, I Know This Much Is True frequently draws upon these same family themes, not only focusing on the relationship between Dominick and Thomas, but also looking at relationship they have with their mother, their strict and distant stepfather, and even the relationship that both have with Dominick's ex-wife.
“I make films about family because family relationships are the most intimate relationships we have,” Cianfrance told Screendaily. “In a family, you see all sides of a person – the good, the bad and the ugly.”
The book also looks at the twins' grandmother, an immigrant from Italy. Cianfrance, who is based out of New York City but has an Italian-American heritage, felt a bond with that aspect of the story as well. "[It's] something I’ve tried to deal with in my films–this idea of ancestral choices and familial traumas that reverberate through generations," he said in the same Screendaily interview. "This book spoke to all those things. It’s about intimate family relationships, the bond of being in a family, but also the burden."
It's not the first HBO series to look at the themes of family ancestry, and how knowledge of the past can impact someone's present. Last fall's Watchmen, also deeply examined the idea of knowing where you come from; showrunner Damon Lindelof said that he was inspired, of all things, by a Finding Your Roots episode that featured Questlove.
Ruffalo was attracted to the project in part due to the way the book and the script honestly portray the reality of mental illnesses. "There's an element of mental illness in this project and you want to be as honest as you can to that, and it means a lot to me to be honest to that which means going into that world and getting to know it and getting comfortable with it," he said. "I was really afraid to play it, I think it's a really an important issue and I want to tell it as honestly as possible, the responsibility of playing it was really apparent to me."
The I Know This Much Is True book was a June 1998 entry in Oprah's Book Club. "It's not just a book, it's a life experience," the world-famous TV host said at the time. It was Lamb's second novel, after 1992's She's Come Undone; in the 22 years since, he's released four more novels.
With six full parts to tell this expansive story, Cianfrance doesn't have to worry about the restrictions of fitting a long book into one (or even two, in the case of Stephen King's It and the upcoming Dune) film. He can let the story breathe, as it was meant in the book, and let Ruffalo and the rest of the cast let their work speak for itself.
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