I've read a few of the reviews here - mostly lukewarm - so wanted to add mine because I think some people will really love this film. The superficial aspects commented on by others are essentially correct. It is 'slow', does not have many events, the dialogue is starchy (but I think authentically stuffy middle-class British for the era), it's very weird and perhaps fundamentally nonsensical. However the low-key surface is counteracted very effectively by a sense of dread and threat to create a queasy tension that lasted from beginning to end. Edward Woodward is extraordinarily good, as he is in most things. His face is a work of art in this. His little furrows of concern or slight smiles of bemusement, and so on, are utterly compelling (for me, anyway!). In the final moments especially, I was completely enthralled and absorbed by what his character is going through. The sedate pace of the film is occasionally punctuated by absurd and uncanny shocks and jarring edits. There's at least one moment where a sort of grimacing laughter is entirely appropriate. It is a nightmare about nightmares, with the illogicality, tonal inconsistency and unresolved questions of nightmares. Perhaps it's just the era, but it reminded me a bit of 'Time Bandits' in the depiction of a UK early 80s mundane household gone wrong. Fans of 'In Fabric' by Peter Strickland might also like this, although they are very different films. And at one point, the Reeves and Mortimer characters 'Le Corbussier et Papin' come to mind. All I can say is I was not expecting to like this, and ended up loving it - but I expect you have to be a fan of woozy, feverish dreams to feel the same way.
Reviews
10 Reviews
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
(2024– )
It's really good
7 February 2024
If you like witty, intelligent dialogue and performances, you'll like this. I've seen some other negative reviews here but after reading them I realised that their criticisms sounded irrelevant to me - eg referring to their fondness for the Pitt/Jolie film (which I've never seen). Clearly it isn't the film, it's just the same basic idea. Really the concept here is - what if a funny couple, who irritate each other and tease each other, were a couple of covert agents who barely know anything about who they're working for. Me and my wife are laughing a lot and enjoying it enormously. The dialogue is very good, very modern screwball comedy - it might remind you of Howard Hawks (or the way that Tarantino used Hawks-esque trivial/witty chat punctuated by violence/action). Anyway, the actors are good, the dialogue is funny, the action is pretty exciting - I hope there's more to come.
Inside Man
(II) (2022)
Farce not thriller
5 October 2022
This is an interesting but totally failed experiment in taking the kind of stupid and unlikely things that characters in broad farce do, but as a thriller. Without the payoff of humour, when characters react to a situation in a way that makes no sense whatsoever, over and over again, it's just grindingly and painfully annoying. It's like a strange lovechild of Coupling, and some Sherlock b-stories - both written by Moffat so perhaps that's not far off the truth. The acting is fine, the dialogue is fine. Everything, apart from the believeability of 99% everything that nearly all of the characters do, is fine.
Undone
(2019–2022)
Fun. We need to make this point.
3 May 2022
Yes this show is touching, fascinating, bold, different. But these sorts of descriptions put me off watching it, because I am a very shallow person and generally avoid things described as 'profound', 'thought-provoking', 'moving' etc. What I realise having watched the first season and just starting the second, is that it is fun. Fun fun fun! Funny, fast-moving, addictive fun. This really should be said more, because it might help the show reach emotionally immature people like myself.
The Witchfinder
(2022)
It's good actually
14 March 2022
I'm just here to counteract the negative reviews, really. It builds nicely, it requires more than a second of patience to let things get established. It's not a sitcom with quickfire jokes - it's a comedy series with funny characters, performed extremely well.
Painfully grating
23 August 2021
My wife, who's usually a big fan of the show, said it might have been the worst thing to have be displayed on a television ever. And like a bad dose of food poisoning, this has put me off consuming any more episodes even if the others aren't as toxic.
This is actually a really good one
18 October 2020
I felt compelled to contribute. MM has become a COVID-era comfort tv favourite, and my and my wife have been watching all the top-rated ones on IMDb. This one wasn't as highly-starred as we'd usually try. But it turned out to be one of our favourites - good whodunnit factor, bit Agatha Christie in some ways, some very funny lines, great performances from charming and reliable actors (check the trivia to see how many in this were in other MMs). We thought it was well up there with the best we've seen, though I admit we've only scratched the surface so far.
Grim and gritty
7 April 2019
Hard to know how truly realistic this dark representation of life of the breadline is for, the period, but it's a solidly-portrayed vision of poverty, casual crime, domestic violence and child neglect. Perhaps the performances could be better, but I was certainly engaged with the characters without any problems. Doctor Who fans will recognise John Bennett, better known as Li H'sen Chang from the Talons of Weng-Chiang, as an ex-con.
Jack Ryan
(2018–2023)
Bring me some new clichés
10 September 2018
I'm shocked that a channel ostensibly competing with Netflix, HBO etc. is peddling something so littered with prehistoric clichés, one-dimensional characterisation and absurdly forced confrontations between characters to artificially heighten the drama. But it's not utterly awful, it's just very very disappointing.
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