One Hundred Years of Solitude: 'epic' adaptation captures magic of 'unfilmable' novel

It's surely a "fool's game" to try to adapt Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel-prize-winning novel, "One Hundred Years of Solitude", into a television series, said Keith Watson in The Telegraph. "How do you film the unfilmable?"

Capturing the "labyrinthine" book's "towering themes" and "magic realist" imagery should be almost impossible. But, as the first episode of Netflix's "epic" adaptation unfolds, you're drawn into Marquez's tale like "succumbing to the surreptitious skills of a hypnotist".

The action follows the Buendia family who leave behind their hometown and "start life afresh", establishing the town of Macondo in a "forgotten corner of Colombia". Gradually, the book's key themes emerge, with everything from desire and greed to politics and religion slowly muddying "Macondo's idealistic waters" and tearing the town apart.

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But it's the "individual human cost" that's the main focus of this "spellbinding" show. "There is no political tub-thumping here: simply an aching sense of nostalgia, seasoned with smouldering anger for innocence lost."

Filmed in Colombia with an almost entirely Colombian cast, the series is a "deeply personal" project for the Marquez family, who have "closely guarded" the rights to the book since the revered writer's death, said Veronica Villafañe in Forbes.

It's "remarkable" how close the Netflix show gets to "recreating not just the substance but also the kinetic spirit of the book", said Judy Berman in Time. Over eight hour-long episodes, the century-spanning series manages to "tell a dynamic story without oversimplifying Marquez's grand themes".

Each episode features "surreal images from the novel" that "could easily have looked silly" but somehow manage to "retain their poetic profundity". And there are outstanding performances throughout: Claudio Cataño brings a "haunting stillness" to Aureliano, while Nicole Montenegro injects "wildness" into the role of the "nearly feral" orphan, Rebeca.

Sometimes, though, the series feels as if it is "almost too faithful to the book", lapsing into a kind of "reverent formality". And, occasionally, "quieter revelations" are moved past too quickly, as the writers attempt to keep up with Marquez's "swift pace". But this is a "minor complaint that shouldn't detract from a major achievement". Arriving at the end of a year that's seen many producers attempt to transform "unfilmable" novels into TV shows, this is among the "best of the bunch".

One Hundred Years of Solitude will air on Netflix from 11 December