Highly Overrated But Still Good

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Meyerism is a new age movement founded by Dr. Stephen Meyer back in the 70's viewed by the outside world as a cult. Its main concept is to climb a ladder to the top to receive the universal truth. Cal Roberts (Hugh Dancy) is an ambitious leader of the movement. Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) is a committed Meyerist married to doubting Eddie Lane (Aaron Paul). Their teen son Hawk (Kyle Allen) struggles to find his place. Mary Cox (Emma Greenwell) is saved by the Meyerists after a tornado and becomes infatuated with Cal. There are old guards, seeds of doubt, suspicion, and deceit as the movement faces challenges from outside and within. Rockmond Dunbar is an undercover FBI agent in the first two seasons and the show is cancelled after three seasons.The first season promises some interesting intrigue within a secret society. The leading trio are all terrific actors and the characters are fascinating. It starts a little rocky. There are narrative issues but the great actors are always compelling. The second season adds its own issues. I really dislike the water plot device. I appreciate the purpose of it but I don't like the side road it takes the show onto. This is a show of intriguing potential and good actors. It does struggle to maintain the narrative at times. The triad leads probably diffuses the protagonist intensity. The rocky flow keeps it from being a great must watch.

Thoughtful and immersive character piece. The characters are almost without exception, exceptional. But every time they pull you in, Aaron Paul steps onscreen and shatters the illusion they've worked so hard to build. A cult leader? A father? Come on. Whoever cast him should be embarrassed. Maybe even ashamed.Aaron, please, for the love of all that is holy, stop whispering for no reason, appending "okay" to the end of every half sentence and titling your head 160 degrees on it's y-axis. Then go take an acting class and have some real life experiences to base your next performance on so that it's not just another 'Jesse Pinkman plays daddy'.

I fail to understand how a series could have such an incredibly well done first season, only to lurch off the rails by the middle-end of second season, and then totally go deep end bonkers by the third (stopped watching a few epi's in). Has to be different writers. It's like the first season writing was replaced with a team whose only experience is in bad soap operas. SO disappointing. The premise, story line development, characters/casting/acting were all amazingly well done Season One. Totally hooked. Then Season 2: starts to come in with too many side stories, never going back to develop/conclude/weave into the rest of the story line..then characters begin to display neuroses by alternating between their previous development and then behaving perplexingly out of character. This is NOT the same thing as developing a nuanced character; the series HAD managed to pull this off in a stellar way Season One. Then all the story lines became overlaid with a healthy dose of tawdry American soap opera on top of it..we the viewer left needing a pad of paper and pen to jot down all the inconsistencies, 180's, unexplained terms left hanging between characters, only to change with no explanation...UGH. SUCH a disappointment.

The Path centers around a cult in upstate New York with various characters either falling deeper into it or adjusting to life outside of it. Weaving together an impressive number of existing religious practices and mythologies, creator Jessica Goldberg builds an impressively intricate religious world view for her characters from the ground up.At the center of it all is a family torn by various levels of devotion and a leader (Cal, played by Hugh Dancy) who ranks somewhere in the middle echelon of corrupt characters on TV. Part of the the theme is that corruption and shortcuts are hard to avoid when trying to build a big movement under the veneer of behaving with good morals. In this fashion, the show isn't just a political snipe at Scientology (that would be kind of easy) but a richer more universal commentary about all religious organizations and how they can blind people to abuse of power: You stand for good, is it that wrong to throw a little bad into the mix in service of the end goal? The family consists of Eddie (Aaron Paul, who throws himself into the role admirably) who's veering away from religious belief, Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) who's veering closer to the center of the religious power structure, and Hawk (Kyle Miller) who's oscillating between the two ends. They also have a daughter but as of yet (halfway through season 2) she serves no discernible function. It's, again, a situation that can be topically applied to a great many religions where intermarriage is a problem.The use of side characters is also pretty well-placed: Emma Greenwell plays a former drug addict who's going in a journey of the opposite direction of Eddie and trying to rediscover herself in cult life. Similarly, Ali Ahn stands out as Sarah's sister-in-law who slowly pushes for power for her husband in the second season.The show might disappoint if you're looking for something that deals with religion and faith in the way that films like Silence, Seven Years in Tibet or Lost Horizon might. Instead it's about the bureaucracy of religion and the pratfalls of corruption.I didn't find it in the upper echelon of the most engaging things on TV but, for me, it was certainly watchable enough to stick with (it gets significantly more exciting in the second season). Enough ingredients are in place that it could really be someone else's cup of tea though.