Trent Dalton’s debut novel, Boy Swallows Universe (2019), starts off as a low-key, small-scale character study of Eli Bell, a sensitive, intelligent tween boy living in the suburbs of 1980s Brisbane, Australia, with his quirky family—who happen to be involved in the local heroin trade. Before long, the narrative heads into violent thriller territory: At various points, Eli has his finger hacked off by a crime lord, breaks into a women’s prison, and barely escapes a random fight between two local drug gangs after selling one of them AU$50,000 worth of smack. Eventually, Eli becomes a cub newspaper reporter who uncovers a bizarre criminal enterprise, tumbling the story headlong into body-horror territory. Boy Swallows Universe is never boring, but its attempt to simultaneously deliver a moving family drama and a brutal crime saga, among other things, becomes unwieldly and mildly ridiculous. The same goes for the new miniseries adaptation, which premieres Jan. 11 on Netflix.

Dalton populates his meandering work with plenty of colorful characters. Eli’s nonspeaking older brother, August, is an odd bird given to writing strange phrases in the air with his finger, such as the three words that make up the book’s title; sometimes these phrases turn out to be prophetic. (Whether August really has the power to foretell the future remains frustratingly vague.) Other characters tread dangerously close to cliché; Eli’s recovering addict mother, for instance, has plenty of love to give, but a habit of making very bad decisions, such as getting romantically involved with criminals or unstable men; the latter include the boys’ alcoholic, unreliable father, who’s long been out of the picture. Aging ex-convict and convicted murderer Slim Halliday gives Eli life advice about how, for instance, people have good in them but also bad. Eli also relates such observations as “From what I’ve seen, true love is hard. Real romance has death in it. It has midnight shakes and flecks of shit across a bedsheet.”

The new miniseries, fortunately, excises the fecal flecks, but it’s just as blood-spattered as the novel, and its plot remains just as loopy. It was adapted for television by screenwriter John Collee, who, oddly enough, wrote the well-regarded 2003 seafaring drama Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. However, it’s the actors that make the miniseries sail as true as it does—at least, before the plot goes too far into choppy waters. Felix Cameron, as the young Eli, is consistently likable, and his absence is felt when a less-compelling actor, Zac Burgess, steps in to play a slightly older version of the same character. The Originals’ Phoebe Tonkin brings much-needed complexity to the underwritten role of Eli’s mom. Several stalwart Australian actors turn up in smaller parts, as well: The Mentalist’s Simon Baker is truly affecting as the boys’ estranged dad; Anthony LaPaglia is a notably creepy villain; and Bryan Brown, perhaps best known to American audiences from the 1986 thriller F/X, gives ex-con Slim Halliday impressive gravitas.

Still, the miniseries’ melodramatic climax—involving an award ceremony gone wrong, multiple stabbings, a violent confrontation in a clock tower, and a spectacular demise—is even more jaw-dropping than the book’s. In the series’ final scene, narrator Eli might be excusing his tale’s wilder moments: “Looking back on what happened, it’s hard to separate real life from make-believe.” It’s an odd thing for a young reporter to say, but this tale does follow at least one journalistic dictum: If it bleeds, it leads.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.