By Melinda Houston
FAHRENHEIT 451 ★★★★
Monday 9.30pm, Showcase
We have seen the future, and the future is emojis. Ray Bradbury's original dystopia, in which printed matter is banned (and burned) and everything comes to us via giant screens needed only a little tweaking to make it feel like the not-so-distant future in Ramin Bahrani's adaptation.
Michael B. Jordan in Fahrenheit 451.
Bradbury imagined us all addicted to soap operas. Here all information is reduced to the equivalent of a hashtag and homes are monitored by a state-controlled Siri-like helper that does everything from choosing your outfits to prescribing – and delivering – medicine.
Living the good life in the midst of all this is Montag (Michael B. Jordan, excellent), a fireman on the rise who seems to take particular relish in tracking down dissidents and torching illegal materials, making the first act as burny and action-packed as you could wish. But when Montag and his crew come across a room in an old house crammed with books things start to shift and it's the philosophical discussions as much as the action that make this so invigorating.
And while the whole point here is a passionate defence of books and reading, it also intelligently acknowledges the power of words to divide – and inflame.