HBO’s ‘The Sympathizer’ Leans Into the Tragic Absurdity of the Vietnam War

Dichotomies and seeing things from both sides are at the heart of this series, an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2015 novel. Our hero, the child of a French father and Vietnamese mother, known only as the Captain (Hoa Xuande), spins this yarn as a confession in a North Vietnamese reeducation camp shortly after the end of the war. He was working, he claims, as a deep-cover mole for the Communists with the secret police in Saigon, where he was assigned to a somewhat buffoonish General (Toan Le). Though eager to celebrate the liberation of the south, the Captain’s handler orders him to join the General and his coterie when they flee to America. He was educated in the United States, understands (maybe loves?) the culture, and has an established rapport with the General’s CIA connection. His job is to monitor the situation there and report back.

So how does he end up captured by the North Vietnamese? Well, this is complicated, and the route to get there wickedly lampoons the military, academia, Hollywood, and, perhaps a bit more painfully, the mindset of war refugees incapable of adjusting to new surroundings. The Sympathizer is about tragedy, but, like Catch-22 or MASH, can also be called a comedy. I guess it’s all where your sympathies lie.

One of the bigger gags is the casting, with Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr. hamming it up in several makeup-heavy roles. (This is not an explicit nod to the Vietnam War film spoof Tropic Thunder, but that history adds some extra spice to the stew.) We first meet him as Claude, the gruff CIA man who helped groom the Captain when he was educated in America. (When, specifically, he decided to align with the Communists is unclear, though the real-life spy that The Sympathizer is very loosely based on already considered himself a mole at that young age.) Claude later assumes false identities, just because there’s nothing this story loves more than complications.

Robert Downey Jr. in The Sympathizer.HBO

Some of Downey’s other roles include a condescending professor of Oriental studies (swishing around in a kimono and demanding his Japanese-American assistant take more pride in her culture); a right-wing congressman (“Napalm” Ned Godwin) who grunts like Clint Eastwood and whose maniacal hatred of Communists helps him overcome his racism, thus aligning him with the General and having an anti-Castro Cuban wife; and an egocentric film director working on an Apocalypse Now-like Vietnam picture, the portrayal of which is a little unfair to Francis Ford Coppola. (Sure, he was and is dedicated to his vision as an artist, but in a mostly benevolent way, not like the snot portrayed in The Sympathizer.)

Mirroring the Captain is left-wing journalist Sonny (Alan Trong), who stayed in America after college. The Captain secretly envies his ability to be open with his Viet Cong sympathies but scorns him for not “earning it” in the homeland during the war. Naturally, they are both sleeping with the same woman (Sandra Oh).

The other key characters who double as big honkin’ metaphors are Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan), which, yes, is French for “good,” and Man (Duy Nguyen), which is English for, uh, “man.” At age 14, they formed a three-way blood bond, but the big secret is that the Captain and Man are loyal to the Communists—indeed, Man is his handler, with whom he corresponds using invisible ink and complex codes. Bon, however, is a defiant South Vietnamese who escapes to America with the Captain and the General, but whose wife and child are killed as they race to make the last flight out. This tense sequence almost one-ups the real-life chaos of the fall of Saigon.

From left: Hoa Xuande as the Captain, Fred Nguyen Khan as Bon, and Duy Nguyen as Man in The Sympathizer. HBO

There’s more to the tableaux of characters, especially in the Los Angeles refugee community, and while the series keeps the story moving, a great deal of the clever writing that made the book such a success translates over nicely. There are examples at every turn: The professor teaches Oriental studies at a thinly veiled Occidental College (zing!), and his book of highly influential political theory is attributed to one Richard Hedd. (I’ll let you work that one out on your own.)

That book, Asian Communism and the Oriental Mode of Destruction, is used by the Captain and Man as the foundation of their cipher, but it also contains the line eerily similar to a notorious statement by Gen. William Westmoreland: “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as that of the Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient, and as the philosophy of the Orient expresses it, life is not important.”

That preposterous sentiment is rebuked by the psychologically convalescing refugees—some of whom have turned to alcoholism, defacing property with images of the “Saigon execution” photo, or, as mentioned in one dark moment, “beating their wives just to feel like men.” As the series heads into its final third, the General (backed by the CIA) crews up for a quixotic attempt at a Bay of Pigs-like invasion via Thailand, which, of course, quickly falls apart.

Hoa Xuande as the Captain in The Sympathizer. HBO

The Captain isn’t just a witness to the scheme; he’s an active participant in two cold-blooded murders. (He’s still a likable guy; Hoa Xuande gives an incredible performance.) The moments of violence, however, are shot through a bleakly funny lens, in the style of the Coen Brothers. One includes a doddering half-deaf granny in the same frame as a life-or-death struggle.

The first three episodes are directed by the series’ co-creator, Park Chan-wook, the South Korean auteur of Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and the recent John le Carré adaptation The Little Drummer Girl. His episodes all contain a noticeable cinematic sparkle, making clever use of match cuts that weave the complex narrative in simplifying ways. The remainder of the series is directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, The Two Popes) and British director Marc Munden (The Secret Garden).

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All seven episodes look terrific, from the period automobiles and Budweiser cans to the Vietnamese “hamlet” in both the Captain’s memory and the Hollywood film production where the Captain is acting as an authenticity consultant, blending art and life with helicopter blades. There’s also a keen deployment of fresh music from the era—not a hint of Creedence Clearwater Revival!—but instead tunes like “Dynomite!” by Bazuka (a funky number with a mention of armaments) and fiery free jazz by Ornette Coleman. It all builds to our hero’s tortuous showdown with his homeland, his identity, and himself. Unless you’ve read the book, there’s really no way to predict the ending, and yet once you see it you realize that it’s perfect.

America’s counterculture, instigated significantly by the Vietnam War (but also civil rights and the pill), is just about the most heavily covered topic in movies and television, but there are so few projects from the Vietnamese perspective. Of course, as with any group, there isn’t just one Vietnamese point of view. The Sympathizer, almost magically, is able to fit many in, even if it almost destroys everyone in its path. There hasn’t been a series this complex—and also so funny—in a very long time.