East Of Eden Review: Florence Pugh Soars In Netflix's Stiff Adaptation Of John Steinbeck's Magnum Opus

Published Oct 1, 2026, 3:01 AM EDT

Graeme Guttmann is the Deputy News Editor for ScreenRant, overseeing the News and Interview & Events team for film and television. He began at ScreenRant in 2020 as a freelancer. He has interviewed talent from various films and series, including Jennifer Coolidge, Mikey Madison, Emma Roberts, and more.

Additionally, Graeme is a critic for ScreenRant, having attended film festivals like Sundance, Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, and Cannes.

You can reach him at [email protected] and read his criticism here: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/critics/graeme-guttmann/movies

It is no easy feat to adapt a book like East of Eden, the seminal novel by American author John Steinbeck, who has penned such works as The Grapes of Wrath and *Of Mice and Men. *It is certainly an especially difficult task for creator, showrunner, and writer Zoe Kazan, whose grandfather Elia directed his own adaptation of the book in 1955, a condensed version of Steinbeck’s epic story. Netflix gives Kazan seven episodes to dive into the biblical tale, which takes place primarily in the Salinas Valley in Northern California after setting up its story in New England.

Kazan’s version of East of Eden, while more complete, still eschews some elements of Steinbeck’s novel to streamline the story. The Hamilton family is less prominent and Cathy Ames, portrayed by Florence Pugh, is more of a focus, putting arguably the most compelling elements of the novel center stage. But in its differences, East of Eden struggles to hold the thematic weight of Steinbeck’s text, becoming a paint-by-the-numbers adaptation that suffers from its faithfulness even as its strengths rise above the noise.

In the logline for the series, Kazan reveals that her version of East of Eden sets out to *“[focus] new attention on its indelible antihero” *Cathy Ames, with that last word presenting a slight wrinkle in how Cathy is viewed by the show’s creator, and how she views the story as a whole. It is undeniable that Cathy is written by Steinbeck as the embodiment of evil, with the author referring to her as a monster who appears to look normal, someone who sees normality as inherently evil and evil as inherently normal. Somehow, though, it still works - to an extent.

Much of this has to do with Pugh’s performance. Known for her expressiveness, Pugh is more subdued here, wielding her trademark look only when necessary and otherwise presenting as steely, the picture of eerie calm. In Kazan’s East of Eden, Cathy is a woman bucking against the way society treats her, fighting for freedom and using that freedom to wreak havoc in her life as a form of dastardly control.

It’s a modern take on Cathy and one that is sure to divide audiences. It complicates her pure villainy, which was surely the intention of Steinbeck’s original characterization. Making Cathy a victim of circumstance rather than one that wields her power simply because she can robs the character of some agency, an oxymoron that lies underneath the modernization of one of literature’s most complex female characters. One key change to her origin, in particular, will likely draw consternation, but Pugh’s performance somehow seems to both lean into these changes and work against them to give Cathy the well-rounded portrayal she deserves. Kazan and Pugh both clearly care about Cathy, just in very different ways.

It can’t help but feel as if something is missing, especially when Cathy isn’t onscreen…

This is especially true when Pugh is performing opposite Mike Faist as Charles, brother of Adam whose relationship with Cathy is much more turbulent, and therefore much more interesting, than that of hers with Adam. Faist’s limited screen time doesn’t undermine the power of his performance, but it does underscore Christopher Abbott’s weakness as Adam here. Typically a strong performer, Abbott seems a bit lost in the material, partially a fault of Steinbeck’s source material and of Kazan’s own focus on other aspects of the story, some of which feel like diversions rather than intentional additions to an already-sprawling text.

And that’s the crux of the problem with *East of Eden. *It is so focused on Cathy that it loses sight of its other characters. The show’s standout episodes are all focused on Pugh’s character, with entire hours dedicated to Cathy’s story, including her violent origins as the woman she will become when she meets Charles and Adam Trask, and the woman she creates when she morphs from Cathy into her devastating final form.

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