HBO has unveiled the first trailer for next month’s six-part miniseries Show Me A Hero, which stars Oscar Isaac (of the terrific Inside Llewyn Davis and A Most Violent Year) as a young New York mayor working to combat racism, discrimination and inequality by altering the all-powerful system he remains a part.
The series, from The Wire creator David Simon, is a dramatic study in American politics and the tensions that strain relations surrounding racism, wealth and class disparity in a central American city. And appropriately, given that subject matter, Crash director Paul Haggis is behind the camera for the project.
There’s a furious accumulation of talent on Show Me A Hero, and HBO in particular has a tremendous track record for approaching stories as multi-layered and topical as this with a great degree of subtlety and intelligence. As such, the show is definitely on my radar for August, and I feel fairly confident predicting we’ll be hearing about at least Isaac’s performance closer to awards season (the Emmys do love to roll out the red carpet for those New A-List arrivals – just ask Matthew McConaughey).
Here’s the official synopsis:
From creator David Simon (HBO’s “Treme” and “The Wire”) and director Paul Haggis (“Crash”), and based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Lisa Belkin, this six-part miniseries explores notions of home, race and community through the lives of elected officials, bureaucrats, activists and ordinary citizens in Yonkers, NY. In an America generations removed from the greatest civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the young mayor (Oscar Isaac) of a mid-sized American city is faced with a federal court order that says he must build a small number of low-income housing units in the white neighborhoods of his town. His attempt to do so tears the entire city apart, paralyzes the municipal government and, ultimately, destroys the mayor and his political future.
Show Me A Hero premieres in August.
