Finishing the Family Business: How Zoe Kazan's 'East of Eden' Gives Cathy Ames Her Close-Up

[THE FAMILY BUSINESS] Her grandfather filmed a quarter.

• In 1955, director Elia Kazan turned John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden into a film starring James Dean, its poster pictured, but the movie adapted only the fourth and final part of the book.
• Seven decades later, his granddaughter, the actress and writer Zoe Kazan, created a seven-episode Netflix series that tells the whole story and moves the woman at its center, Cathy Ames, into the spotlight.

[THE CLOSE-UP] Even Steinbeck reconsidered Cathy.

• Steinbeck kept Cathy offstage until the eighth chapter and first called her a monster, but his letters to his editor show his curiosity about her growing as he wrote.
• Florence Pugh, pictured, plays Cathy without softening her, and critics have called the performance terrifying and her best work yet. Noozify gives the series an A−.