REVIEW: ‘Lucky Hank’

The Disappointing Adaptation of Richard Russo’s Straight Man

Richard Russo’s Straight Man (1997) is one of the funniest American contributions to the tradition of the campus novel. It follows the middle-aged English professor William Henry Deveraux Jr. during a particularly eventful week at West Central Pennsylvania University (not a real school) in Railton, Pa. (not a real town). An adaptation of Russo’s work is airing on AMC, but because no network executive in his left mind would greenlight a show called Straight Man—you might as well pitch Cisgender Patriarch, even if Russo’s title refers to the stiff in a comedy routine—it’s called Lucky Hank.

Lucky Hank is an enjoyable show with many excellent performances, but six episodes into its eight-episode season, it underplays the novel’s slapstick humor and squalid setting. Bob Odenkirk, fresh off his marvelous performance on Better Call Saul, stars as the title character, a struggling novelist and chair of the English department at Railton College. Underachieving and acerbic, Hank is frustrated by his mediocre students, bickering and back-stabbing colleagues, and financially duplicitous administrators who plan to shrink his department even as they find money for a new tech center.

The Dysfunctions of the Railton English Department

The dysfunctions of the Railton English department is a source of some of the show’s funniest moments. With their selfishness and pettiness, the professors are Seinfeld characters with graduate degrees. The most they can do when one of them (Cryer) lands a poem in the Atlantic is to offer her muted congratulations as she over-celebrates. These characters are compelling in part because whereas the novel is narrated by Hank, the series devotes many scenes to the Hank-free perspectives of the supporting cast.

A cynical viewer might observe that the department’s faculty looks like it was selected by Railton’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion administrators, but that’s hardly relevant when the characters are so funny and played so well. More tragic is the disappearance of the professor in Straight Man known as Orshee.

The Disappointing Humor and Setting

The show’s humor has been disappointing in other ways. Even though the first two episodes were directed by Peter Farrelly, one of the Farrelly Brothers behind Dumb & Dumber and There’s Something About Mary, it has generally eschewed the slapstick humor that made the book so memorable.

But I’ve been especially disappointed by how the show depicts the college campus and the surrounding town. The series makes clear that Railton College is experiencing financial difficulties and that the faculty is unhappy. Yet the school itself is beautiful. Apart from the duct tape on the steering wheel of his Volvo, Hank seems to be living comfortably.

But in Straight Man, Hank’s building is going through the long process of asbestos removal and its ceiling is in disrepair, while Railton itself is in postindustrial despair. Such details are crucial to understanding Hank’s personal and professional crises, so the show is shallower for only hinting at them with the occasional sound of a passing train.

Previous adaptations of Russo’s novels showcased the run-down nature of the towns in which they were set, which helped viewers understand some of the forces shaping the characters’ lives and hindering their ambitions. But Lucky Hank flinches.

I’m interested to see how the next two episodes of Lucky Hank resolve the tensions and plotlines it has developed so far. But I’ve given up expecting it to match the quality of its source material; that train has left the station.

Lucky Hank airs Sundays on AMC.

Christopher J. Scalia is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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