Apple TV’s Derivative The Mosquito Coast Disappoints, Despite a Magnetic Justin Theroux

This review originally published April 14, 2021

There’s always something so interesting about an “adaptation” of a novel that doesn’t really adhere to the source material. Paul Theroux’s book The Mosquito Coast, and the subsequent 1986 film starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, are about an idealistic inventor named Allie Fox who moves his family from the U.S. to the Mosquito Coast of Honduras to escape American consumer culture. Disaster ensues, and it’s almost completely due to Allie’s egotism. In the new Apple TV+ version of The Mosquito Coast, I grant you that the character is still named Allie Fox, and he’s an inventor, and he has a family that will have to trudge along on his madcap adventures. Everything else, through five episodes, seems quite different. This Allie Fox is being hunted by the American authorities for an unknown crime, and the general trajectory—spoiler alert, I guess?—is that he’s going to live a life of crime on the lam.

My question, then, is a simple one: Why is this called The Mosquito Coast? It’s not an adaptation of the novel or the movie; not really. I suppose I could understand it from a financial angle if that title brought significant clout and a big audience, but as talented a writer as Paul Theroux is—I swear I don’t mean this as an insult—we’re 35 years away from the publication of that book, and it’s not remotely a cultural touchstone with a prestige TV audience. I’m sure there are a thousand creative decisions standing between my question and any kind of sensical answer, but really, this is not hugely different from someone writing a series called The Sun Also Rises, and it’s in Spain and sometimes you see a matador, but it’s mostly about zombies.

I don’t suppose Apple can pivot at this late stage, but if they’re looking for a new title, I have an idea: Breaking Badder. Or Breaking Worse, if you’re a stickler.

Why not? This is extremely inside the Breaking Bad genre, right down to the desert setting of the first season, and I’m here to tell you that it’s not a terrible show. If that sounds like damning with faint praise, then yes, that’s somewhat my intention, but I’m serious when I say that there are worse things on this planet than a decent Breaking Bad knock-off starring Justin Theroux. I will even venture a guess that some people are going to really love this show, even though I feel secure in saying it’s not going to resonate on that same level.

I should also admit that calling a Justin Theroux vehicle mediocre feels strange. Here, as Allie Fox, he’s an arresting presence as always, completely captivating every time he’s on screen, and perhaps the one thing keeping the show from teetering into below-average territory. He’s one of those performers from whom you can’t look away, and whose preternatural ability to draw the viewer in makes you feel inadequate when you try to convey the idea in writing that yes, holy God, this guy is a really damn good actor. It’s a great role for him, because like Kevin Garvey in The Leftovers, there is simultaneously something very confident and assured about Allie Fox, while just beneath surface, chaos and catastrophe loom. You take one look at him, you watch him speak, and you think, “this man is completely dangerous, but I’m not sure anyone can resist him.”