Call me satisfied. I have just watched the first three episodes of the adaptation for The Power, a new original Amazon Studios production, and I am here to tell you more about the book and the show.
The Power was written by Naomi Alderman and published in 2016, winning the Women’s Prize for Fiction the following year. I don’t know what I was expecting when I started reading this book, but for some reason it was more dark, disturbing and suffocating than I could’ve anticipated. It’s quite fun to start reading a book without knowing too much about the plot, and this is what happened here, too.
The story is very much from the era we are living, very female-focused and inspirational, but what I appreciated the most was that no character has a full-hero backgroud and you don’t up picking a side – because the world is corrupt as a whole. The main plot of the story is about women developing the ability to release electric jolts from their fingers which makes them powerful enough to take control of the world.
I was saying earlier this month that one of Amazon Prime’s biggest hits this year will be Daisy Jones and The Six, which I stand by, it was beautifully done and I do recommend both the book and the show. But my statement came after watching the trailer for The Power, too. I knew it was based on another bestseller, but the adaptation didn’t seem to go in the same direction as the book (from what I saw in the promotional material). Well, I have just watched the first three episodes and I was surprised. So far, so good. New episodes will be released every Friday.
We’re only pretending everything is normal because we don’t know what else to do.
I keep thinking of Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale when I think of how disturbing this book was. And although The Power is more modern than the aforementioned, there is something there that makes me associate them somehow. And funnily enough, according to Saint World Wide Web, Naomi Alderman and Margaret Atwood do know each other. In an interview for The Guardian, Naomi said: “The one thing Margaret directly suggested was the idea of a convent.”, which is a big part of the final version of the book.
Like Daisy Jones and The Six, The Power was in the making for almost 3 years because of the pandemic. Both Amazon Studios productions were started at the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020 and released in 2023. Good thing they didn’t give up.
Amazon Studios and Sister Pictures co-produced the adaptation for The Power, and the author was working closely with both teams to bring her story to the small screen. The Power was filmed in many locations and a few different countries, including the UK and Romania. I cannot wait to see Ana Ularu and Bogdan Albulescu in their respective roles in the upcoming episodes! 😊
Toni Collette, one of my favourite actresses, stars alongside Auli’i Cravalho (aka Moana) and Toheeb Jimoh (aka Sam from Ted Lasso) amongst others. Yup, I am happy. 😄 And the music is so fun, too! 📺
Trailer:
The Power is now streaming on Amazon Prime and the book is available at Penguin Books.
