‘Patrick Melrose’ despairing tale of addict

“Patrick Melrose,” a despairing yet impressive Showtime adaptation of Edward St. Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical novels, is about a lonely little rich boy who is raped by his narcissistic father and ignored by his coldly aloof mother. In adulthood, Patrick becomes a raging heroin addict, clinging to recovery on the fringes of British high society.

With apologies to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rich are different from you and #MeToo, which can sometimes obstruct the pity and empathy they’re entitled to as human beings. It is to “Patrick Melrose’s” credit that a viewer winds up feeling sorry for the title character despite his bad manners and volatile binges.

The five-part series (premiering Saturday) stars Benedict Cumberbatch, the hypermagnetic star of PBS’ “Sherlock” who rocketed to the big time in Marvel’s superhero movies and an Oscar-nominated performance in 2014’s “The Imitation Game” and, more importantly, uploaded himself to the lovelorn psyche of the female internet.

Suffice to say that “Patrick Melrose” is the Cumberbatch-iest thing the world has yet seen, which many will receive as wonderful news, while a few others (nonfans) might heed as a warning flare. As a star vehicle, it affords the actor — with his cyborg-blue eyes and synthetic good looks — the opportunity to summon all his capital-A acting skills into a manic mural of euphoria, misery and whatever other emotions he cares to season the scenery with before devouring it whole.

Part 1 can be both captivating and off-putting, depending on how much a viewer enjoys watching a drug user hit rock bottom in a fancy hotel suite. It’s 1982 and Patrick (Cumberbatch) learns that his father, David (Hugo Weaving), has died in New York; it’s up to Patrick to travel from London to retrieve his father’s cremains, and he unwisely chooses the trip as an opportunity to quit heroin cold-turkey. Most of the hour is therefore spent chronicling Patrick’s descent into a rarefied hell, pumping himself full of booze, downers and uppers until acquiescing to the needle and spoon, testing the hotel’s tolerance for a well-heeled guest.

As Patrick returns to London to endure the agony of withdrawal, Part 2 takes a much needed flashback to 1967, when David sexually assaults young Patrick (Sebastian Maltz) on a tense and balmy afternoon at the family’s lavish summer place in the south of France, telling the boy that at the very least he is conferring the lifelong gift of detachment.

The household dysfunction and alcohol abuse are plain to see, yet only one of the Melroses’ several houseguests picks up on Patrick’s suffering.