Tom Hooper gets strong performances from actors in period dress, and John Adams gives us good reason to rate him. His attention to detail helps until the ceremony and fussy staging start getting in their way.
Fi1m perspective
The muddy streets in John Adams (2008) do useful work: they make the eighteenth century look like somewhere people had to live. Tom Hooper’s historical drama benefits from that plain attention to discomfort, and from actors who seem at home in their clothes. Cinematographers Danny Cohen and Tak Fujimoto make the setting feel inhabited, while Donna Zakowska’s costumes help without taking over. This is the Hooper we recommend, attentive to the practical business of the past and willing to give performers time. Even here, though, the care sometimes becomes fussiness.
His work in British television, including EastEnders and Cold Feet, preceded Elizabeth I (2005) and Longford (2006). Period drama was an established part of his work by John Adams. He worked from Peter Morgan’s screenplay on The Damned United (2009), before The King’s Speech (2010) brought international recognition. The continuity is his attention to actors in period roles, giving us a reason to watch beyond the care taken over the setting.
Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney are the strongest reason to spend seven episodes with John Adams. We were absorbed because their performances kept us interested in the people, even when the programme grew too pleased with its own seriousness. Hooper allows the talking to matter, and the difficult temperament of the central figure gives the history something human to follow. The wandering structure still needs a firmer hand, and some stretches demand more patience than they repay.
With Les Misérables (2012) and Cats (2019), he moved into musical adaptations. The live on-set singing in Les Misérables fits his interest in actors, but the extreme close-ups and camera movement make for more intrusive direction. Wide-angle lenses, tilted shots and performers placed at the far edges of the frame recur across his work. We would happily see fewer of those flourishes when the acting already gives us enough to watch. Start with John Adams, and allow for the stretches when Hooper seems unwilling to let a historical drama be anything less than important.
Biography
Tom Hooper is a British director and screenwriter. Born in London in 1972, he began his career directing television, including episodes of EastEnders and the 2003 revival of Prime Suspect.
Hooper directed the HBO miniseries John Adams (2008) and the feature films The Damned United (2009) and Cats (2019), the last of which he also co-wrote. His other films include The King's Speech (2010), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director, Les Misérables (2012) and The Danish Girl (2015).
