The Crowded Room is hard to talk about without giving away the secret it tries to hide for the first five of its ten episodes. I can tell you that it’s a fascinating, complicated psychological drama and well worth watching. Tom Holland is brilliant in this, and so is Amanda Seyfried. With that said, I warn you that there are spoilers coming, so stop now if that’s an issue for you.
The Crowded Room was created for television by Akiva Goldsman based on a book by Daniel Keyes called “The Minds of Billy Milligan.“* That giveaway fact is shown in the credits at the beginning of every episode and is a huge spoiler before you even get started.
Danny (Tom Holland with young Danny played by Zachary Golinger) is a troubled teen. We see glimpses of his past life throughout the series. He gets arrested for shooting up Rockefeller Center on a day in 1979. The cops think he might be a serial killer and ask Rya (Amanda Seyfried), a psychology professor, to evaluate him.
Rya talks with Danny about his history and all the people in his life for five episodes, as the mystery of what happened deepens. At last, the series openly states that Danny has multiple personality disorder. It’s masterful and patient, the way Rya treats him and the careful way she diagnoses his disorder. The last episodes deal with his therapy and his trial for attempted murder.
Past and present are woven together so well in The Crowded Room. Some of the people involved in Danny’s past include his mom (Emmy Rossum) and stepdad (Will Chase), and his twin brother Adam (Zachary Golinger again).
Danny hung around with Jonny (Levon Hawke) and Mike (Sam Vartholomeos). He left his family home and moved into a house across the street where he met a tough Israeli named Yitzhak (Lior Raz) and a lonely girl named Ariana (Sasha Lane). He tried to date Annabelle (Emma Laird) but he wasn’t very good at it.
He went to England in search of his dad. There he met Jack (Jason Isaacs), who offered fatherly advice to him. He did not find his real father.
After he was jailed, Danny’s public defender Stan Camisa (Christopher Abbott) and Rya as his therapist became more central to the story. Their stories expanded although the focus stayed on Danny.
Trauma was involved in the story, but it was out of the camera’s view rather than explicitly shown. That was good. I was impressed with the set that represented Danny’s mind, a strange murky labyrinth of layers, locks, water, shadows and light. It was brilliant set design to represent a broken psyche.
The series dealt with mental illness tenderly and with understanding. Amanda Seyfried as Rya was so good at gaining trust and steering Danny’s mind, but it was a slow process. This is a quiet series with a mystery at its heart. I thought it was excellent, but I don’t think it’s for everyone. It’s dark and patient in its handling of Danny.
Mona Fastvold directed 3 of the 10 episodes in this Apple TV+ drama. The entire series is available now.
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