You couldn't make this stuff up – because it sounds so absurdly cruel.

Perhaps that's why the scriptwriters of Channel Nine's new miniseries House of Hancock based their dialogue on real correspondence between Lang Hancock and his daughter, Gina Rinehart.

"[You're] a young mother who's let herself go to the point where she's grossly overweight," Lang spits at Gina, "A slothful, vindictive and devious baby elephant."

It makes for profoundly uncomfortable viewing. Not as uncomfortable, however, as knowing this wasn't some hot-headed outburst.

In reality, Lang sat down and wrote these words on paper. Words carefully chosen to wound.

The foundation for this two-part drama – produced by Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder and Claudia Karvan – is, of course, the epic feud that tore apart one of Australia's richest families.

Set primarily between 1980 and 2002, it begins with Gina (Mandy McElhinney) in awe of her gruff father, West Australian mining magnate Lang (Sam Neill). They're inseparable and Gina is confident she'll inherit the business.

The arrival of Filipina maid Rose Lacson (Peta Sergeant) – hired by Gina to help Lang after her mother dies – changes everything, setting the scene for a decades-long saga.

No doubt the producers would have been tempted, therefore, to have father and daughter perpetually febrile and screaming. Billionaire versions of the people you see on The Jerry Springer Show basically.

While there is no shortage of confrontation, the series does manage to capture the nuances of how this family actually wields its power.

McElhinney is superb as Gina. Her interactions with Rose – for whom she holds unvarnished contempt – are something to behold. Whenever she observes her with her father, moral disapproval seeps from every pore.

She has clinched Gina's boarding school accent; her repertoire of curt expressions; and her school-marmish, pull-up-you-socks attitude.

She also invests her with a humanity, without ever devolving into sentimentality. Gina's relationship with her father, naturally, is central to this.

We're left with the impression that she is both a reflection of him, and a reaction to him.

We first meet Neill's Lang as he is being lavishly serenaded by Rose, before flashing back to 1967, when he is advising his young daughter: "The best advice you'll ever get, Gina: trust no one."

But where Neill really excels is in demonstrating the blithe entitlement that characterises many mega-rich white men.

When he explains how the "problem" of "half castes" ought to be fixed, for instance, he does so in a way that suggests his solution is self-evident.

Most of his pronouncements are delivered in this manner. These are not open to debate; they are merely truths that have been imparted.

This likely explains his fury at Gina's opposition to his new-found love with Rose. How dare she?

It's the depiction of Rose, of course, that will have many tuning in. The outfits, the outbursts, the outsize personality.

It's jarring at first, seeing Sergeant cavort in garish frocks and an accent verging on the parodical. Then you watch old interviews with the real Rose on YouTube and realise that, yes, she hit the mark.

But this is not a thinly-veiled freak show, as many of those interviews were. There are moments, during Sergeant's portrayal, when you find yourself looking at things from Rose's point of view.

A young mother, just a cranky boss's whim away from unemployment. A maid enduring the full, burning force of Gina's disapproval. The giddy intoxication from a wealth she never conceived of.

Only the first episode was available for preview, and Nine is yet to confirm when the second will air. Though it feels a bit rushed at the start, as though all the necessary narrative exposition boxes are being ticked off, it soon settles into an an engrossing rhythm.

Lang marries Rose. Gina is appalled. Lang tries to get Rose a permanent residency. Gina and her husband, Frank Rinehart, try to get it cancelled, sending Lang into a rage ...

We all know how this plays out. In many ways, that makes this dramatisation more compelling.

House of Hancock launches 8.45pm Sunday, February 8th on Channel Nine. 

mlallo@fairfaxmedia.com.au