Photo: Joey L. / Lifetime
Can we all agree, as a society, that the past week really set a new standard for crushingly grim news of the sort that makes one doubt the basic goodness of humanity? The hits just kept coming, day after day, until by Friday I was ready to spend the weekend in bed hugging a hot water bottle. Instead, I watched my screener of The Red Tent, which ended up being basically the same thing.
The Red Tent is based on Anita Diamant's novel of the same name, which takes up the Old Testament story of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, and expands it with a (probably anachronistic) female-centric focus. After a brief intro in which we see the meeting of the trio when they're still young that conforms more or less to the Biblical version you might have already heard, we pick back up with everyone grown up into the expensive actors the production is hoping you'll recognize -- Minnie Driver as Leah, Iain Glen as Jacob, and Morena Baccarin as Rachel, plus Rebecca Ferguson as Dinah, Jacob's only daughter and by now an apprentice midwife. Jacob is trying to get his tribe to worship his (one) god, but when the women gather once a month in the titular red tent, they keep up their own female traditions, from which men are excluded, which involves paying secret homage to their foremothers.
That setup may sound dry, so let me assure you that before long, shit gets real dramatic. The tribe travels to a nearby city, where Dinah basically falls instantly in love with the first man she sees to whom she isn't biologically related. Her dad gets mad at her for pursuing a guy without paternal permission. There's also a nightmare grandmother (played by Debra Winger!) who's wealthy and powerful and cruel to her servants; a sensitive boy (Joseph, whose coat you may have heard about elsewhere) forever dominated by the aggressive brothers who think they're being overlooked; and a son tragically separated from his mother and manipulated into hating her. This is classic soap fodder.
If it seems like I've left out a key element keeping The Red Tent from crossing all the way into Danielle Steel territory, let me assure you: there is lots of sex -- and pretty sexy sex for basic cable, too. Apparently one benefit for Dinah of having spent so much time around pregnant ladies' parts is that she's very in touch with her body, and let's just say that from what we see, the men of the pre-Christian Middle East seem to be remarkably generous partners. In short, when people aren't screaming and crying and looking back in regret over the wreckage their lives have become, they are getting it on.
Lifetime apparently thinks this is its answer to fancy period miniseries like The Pillars Of The Earth or whatever the hell, and between that and the Biblical source material, you might be put off from watching. But that's why I'm here to tell you that the God stuff hardly figures at all, and that this is just Jackie Collins in the desert with much longer hair and hems. After the week we've all had, this might be just the escape you need. Dressed-up trash is a balm for the soul.
The Red Tent airs Sunday, December 7 and Monday, December 8 from 9-11 PM ET on Lifetime.