Ioan Gruffudd and Joel David Moore as Dr Henry Morgan and Lucas Wahl in the ABC drama Forever.
The critics didn’t seem to peg Forever well right from the get-go, and that’s probably why it didn’t get a second season.
Maybe it was the immortality, or lack of interest in Dr Henry Morgan’s English charm?
Either way, I still enjoyed this series.
Sure, it had it’s moments, and ending on a cliffhanger was not the way to go. A flash forward to see how Jo handled the “It’s a long story” wouldn’t have been too much to ask, would it?
Other than that peeve, I don’t really see how a second series could have panned about.
The storylines were all wrapped up: Burn Gorman’s character, known only as “Adam” had been defeated, the mystery surrounding Abigail’s (MacKenzie Mauzy) disappearance had been solved and we knew that Henry would continue being his old Sherlock-y Medical Examiner self, solving crime in his 200-year-old style with Detective Jo Martinez (Alana de la Garza) and Detective Mike Hanson (Donnie Keshawarz) in tow, with Abe (Judd Hirsch) close behind to keep him out of trouble (or should I say in trouble?).
Well, for those who are yet to fall in love with Henry’s English charm, 200-year-old manners (and views?), pocket watch and waistcoat (or already have and don’t mind a refresher), here’s a bit of a down-low on what Forever is all about:
It’s 1814 and Dr Henry Morgan is shot dead on his father’s slave trading ship for trying to free slaves. Flash forward to modern day New York and Henry is a Medical Examiner, solving crime and trying to navigate a perplexing never-ending existence, when Detective Jo Martinez and Adam enter the picture. Keeping his secret just got harder…
It was great to see Torchwood‘s Burn Gorman as the villain Adam, a formidable fellow immortal who just happens to have been around the block a bit more than Henry (for 2000 years), and all the more darker for it. Gorman gave a superb performance, so much so that I wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley anytime soon. With his gravelly voice and a particular talent at pressing all of Henry’s buttons, his beef with Henry was what really had the story moving. You never knew what kind of sadistic game he’d play with Henry next. And after all, what scares an immortal more than knowing that the game might be up.
Ioan Gruffudd was absolutely amazing in his role as Dr Henry Morgan. I quickly fell in love with Henry’s eccentricity and a certain panache that came from being a man out of time. Sure, he did his best to adapt in his survival, but with his characteristic dapperness, manners and views he was the “same old Henry”. His rather philosophical and self-reflective narration at the opening and closing of every episode (which usually centered around purposeful and accidental deaths) added a poignant depth to the series.
What I can describe only as a crime procedural with a 200-year-old character thrown in, Forever was a thoroughly enjoyable watch with enough mystery, villainry and deaths, you’ll forget my grumblings about cliffhangers and the fact that there’s no second season.
The Wilson sisters, Amanda (left), Vicki, and Kelly, with their stallions in Keeping Up With The Kaimanawas.
I’m not really one for reality tv, but combine it with horses, and my eyes are glued to the TV, and have been for the past eight weeks. Keeping Up With The Kaimanawas finished on TVNZ here in New Zealand last week, and I’m sad to see the Wilson sisters go.
Keeping Up With The Kaimanawas followed Wilson sisters, Vicki, Kelly and Amanda as they saved 11 Kaimanawa horses from slaughter at the biannual muster in 2014 and trained their wild stallions for the Stallion Challenges at Equidays.
The series was not only insightful, but also entertaining, with Wilson sister Amanda providing much comic relief with her antics – making the builder biscuits that just happened to be dog biscuits covered in chocolate and hundreds and thousands (he actually enjoyed them and thought it was a lovely gesture…until he found out what they were of course) – and overall goofy personality. She appeared to be the underdog of the sibling rivalry and in the Stallion Challenges, but in the last episode emerged with a second place ribbon. She was my favourite.
Vicki always seemed to be several steps ahead of the others in her bond with her stallion and training for the Challenges. For me, she appeared fearless, doing a lot of tricks on bareback, on both land and water (the property flooded after a lot of rain!)
Kelly wasn’t just a ‘country bumpkin’, constantly being teased for her love of makeup and clothes by her mum and sisters. Kelly appeared to be a talent with the camera and seemed media savvy. She also wrote the Wilson sisters autobiography, For The Love of Horses (which is on my list to read!)
I loved how the show did not shy away from the difficulties and struggles the sisters faced, within themselves and also with their stallions. Amanda comes particularly to mind here, with her stallions Hoff and Nikau, where she had what can be characterised as an up-and-down relationship – with Hoff it was because of pain associated with his teeth that had become psychological. And then there was Vicki, who made the difficult decision to put one of her Kaimanawas down.
It was great to see both the stallions and the sisters grow as the series progressed, and truly captured the spirit of the horses.
The relationships that developed between the sisters and their Kaimanawas was so heartwarming, and beautiful to watch.
Overall, it was great that the series brought all the highs and lows to the screen and hopefully this means more Kaimanawas will find homes in the next muster.
I’m looking forward to their documentary The Mustang Ride which is due for release in 2016, and follows their time with training mustangs in the U.S.
If you’d like to know more about the Kaimanawas, check out this website 🙂
Our Girl may have only been 6 episodes long, but I fell in love with ‘Our Girl’ Molly Dawes. I might be jumping the gun, but I’d have to say Our Girl has been my favourite watch this year. I take my hat off to creator and writer Tony Grounds for creating a fabulous and heart warming series that wasn’t afraid to question Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan (slightly) and touch on PTSD. I anxiously waited for Sunday evening to roll around every week to catch up with Dawes, something that many shows I watch have been failing to do.
Lacey Turner was fantastic in her role as Molly. As I mentioned in my first impressions , Molly was the kind of character who, despite her ability to take s*** from no one with her mix of wit and feistiness, wasn’t without her vulnerabilities, and it was great that this continued throughout the series. Not only because she was the only chick in her platoon, she didn’t put up with copping flak from her comrades, least of all Smurf, played by Game of Thrones’ Iwan Rheon. As I expected, she grew into a strong and courageous young woman, not afraid to risk her own neck (on many occasions) for those she cared about. However, she wasn’t without her vulnerabilities, and this is where the series was a real winner for me – she loved her best friend and former flame Smurf, Captain James and her family. She worried about everyone but herself and in the end she was appreciated for it. Everyone accepted her for who she’d become, her family most of all. But let’s not forget about Lacey Turner. I couldn’t, and still can’t, think of anyone else who could have been Molly. Although I haven’t seen her in anything else, to me, she is Molly. A superb actress.
Our Girl also showed how versatile Iwan Rheon is in his role as Dylan ‘Smurf’ Smith. In Game of Thrones he is sadistic Ramsay Bolton and in Our Girl – I wouldn’t go so far as to say a love-sick puppy – he was a young man who cared immeasurably for the woman who’d saved his life and was trying to honour his brother’s memory by serving. It was very hard not to smile at his class clown personality, and when he wasn’t down about Molly or Molly and Captain James, he was a truly lovable character. He certainly made Molly’s time on her first tour easier. It was very sad to see him go (sorry, I know, spoilers!), although I’ll never really forgive him for almost (I stress the almost) killing Captain James.
Molly’s relationship with an Afghani girl, Bashira, really pulled at the heartstrings. You just know that it’s Molly’s empathy that makes her a great medic, and what a great mother Molly’d be. To a certain extent, Bashira also served as vehicle for Molly to question the good she, and the British Army, were doing in their presence in Afghanistan. With Bashira, it was allowing her to have an education, and when Molly was targeted by the Taliban and Bashira whisked off to a safe house, Molly questioned how her decisions had inevitably changed the course of Bashira’s life forever. Nothing melted my heart more (well, maybe Molly and Captain James) than when Molly held Bashira in her arms, knowing she was safe, and Bashira had no hard feelings.
It was also great for Our Girl to have included PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) in the final episodes. Both Smurf and Molly were affected by their time in Afghanistan, having nightmares etc, and it was great that Smurf and Molly seemed to be moving through it together. I hate it when it’s treated like a taboo, and in Our Girl, it wasn’t. You can never dismiss a soldier’s experience, no matter how dark it may be.
Now, I can’t wrap up this review without talking about the relationship between Captain Charles James (Ben Aldridge) and Molly. I’m a hopeless romantic, I can’t help it!
As Molly did with her comrades, she grew on hardliner Captain James and he fell in love with her wit and courageousness. They were unbelievably cute, without meaning to be. The moment he opened the door, a big goofy grin on his face and Molly said “You miss me?” in all her sassiness, I melted and was smiling for hours (no kidding, I did!). In the end, love proved stronger than army regulations!
I understand there will be a series two (minus Molly 😦 ), but if it’s any good as Our Girl was (sounds like it!), then I will definitely sit down to watch more of Tony Grounds transformative magic. Fingers-crossed that the next series makes its way to New Zealand shores.
Love, love, loved this series, so I encourage you to go away and fall in love with Our Girl.
When We Go To War started flat and ended flat. With its focus on New Zealand’s efforts in Gallipoli, the series promised a lot but ultimately failed to deliver in the first and final episodes. However, the series’ inclusion of more controversial aspects of the war throughout the remainder of the series still make it a worthwhile watch.
A six-part series, When We Go To War follows a seven strong middle-class New Zealand family and Maori brother and sister during the Gallipoli campaign. Separated into three distinct narratives – that of headstrong and opinionated nurse Bea Smith (Esther Stephens) and her tumultuous romance with Dr William Chambers (Tom O’Sullivan) while caring for the wounded in Egypt, the Gallipoli campaign’s effects on lawyer-turned-officer Charles Smith (Ido Drent) and his ‘black sheep’ brother Harry, and finally family friend Manaaki Kokiri (Alexander Tarrant), who struggles not only with his move from preacher to soldier, but also with his stubborn sister, Awa (Shavaughn Ruakere) – the story was framed around letters that six of the central characters wrote home and from home.
The series’ focus on character, rather than on action, was what made it a slightly better watch than Gallipoli and one of the reason’s why I continued. I wanted to know what happened to the characters and if the war changed their outlooks in any way. The fact that the series was told through a succession of letters by members of the Smith family and Manaaki allowed the audience to truly understand the characters and invest in them.
This was particularly the case for Charles, an Auckland Territorial keen to do his bit for king and country, who became a man disillusioned with the war.
The shows ability to delve into controversial and oft forgotten aspects of World War I, including shell shock, conscientious objectors and anti-German hatred, made it a truly worthwhile watch. The series also briefly touched on homosexuality through the youngest member of the Smith family, James (Leith Towers) and his feelings for best friend George. The series also did not neglect to touch on, albeit briefly, the vulnerabilities of many women left behind on the home front and this was done, rather successfully, through Cissy Smith (Freya Milner), whose desire to comfort Manaaki on his return from the front result in her being in the ‘family way’.
Through Manaaki’s horrible experience of putting his best friend Harry out of his misery after being horrifically injured, to seeing visions of him – almost acting as the darkest parts of his conscious and a visual representation of the war within himself, preacher versus solider – served to paint a humbling picture of shell shock, what is now termed PTSD.
And Harry’s mother’s determination to not let another son die explored the controversial, and less known, existence of conscientious objectors, a group I did not learn about until Year 11 History.
The fact that George’s father, a well-respected watchmaker and repairer, was imprisoned just because he was from Germany, and James’ turning his back on his best friend, served as an exploration of anti-German hatred in New Zealand and the fact that both sides in the war were affected.
My favourite character was Bea (not just because I love a good love story :P). She would not let herself be ruled by a man and scoffed at a woman’s ‘proper place’ being in the home as a bit of a ‘blue stocking’ (and now, come to think of it, reminds of Molly Dawes in Our Girl, although being a century apart). Although she got herself in to a pretty sticky situation having an affair with her lecturer, Dr William Chambers, she had the tenacity to get herself out of it – albeit having to give up her dream of becoming a doctor – returned to nursing.
Altogether, a well-rounded series. If you can ignore the rather disappointing first and final episodes, When We Go To War is a series well worth the watch.
Indian Summers may be three episodes in on TVNZ’s One, but so far it hasn’t wowed me. There may be political intrigue and equally intriguing relationships, but I’m not totally hooked – yet. The first episode definitely well established the plot and characters and in the second the plot thickened and characters true motivations were revealed, to a certain extent (I haven’t watched the third :P). So far the political intrigue/India’s push for independence is definitely what’s keeping me watching.
The 10-part series follows a number of British socialites as they enjoy, and ultimately rule, India during the summer of 1932, as all the while India pushes for independence.
However, only two episodes in I know who I like, who I don’t and who I can’t stand.
Who I like:
Alice Whelan (Jemima West) – The younger sister of Ralph Whelan, Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India, she’s returned to India as a single mother. However, a mystery clearly surrounds her return. She warns her husband not to follow them and tells others that she’s a widow, so there’s definitely a lot of intrigue there.
Who I can’t stand:
Sarah Raworth (Fiona Glascott) – I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone whine so much. Sure, your husband (Dougie Raworth, played by Craig Parkinson) isn’t home that much, but he’s doing something amazing with the mission school and she should appreciate his commitment. Plus, she’s so nosy.
Madeleine Mathers (Olivia Grant) – I can think of plenty of other ways of 1) getting a guy’s attention and 2) securing yourself a respectable position than spreading your legs. Stupid red head.
Ralph Whelan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) – Although I can’t quite put my finger on him, Mr Whelan has, and is, definitely up to something bad and fishy. Don’t like him one bit. Plus, using the shooting of one of your workers, who, I might add, took a bullet for him, and using him for propaganda is not, in any way, shape or form, endearing!
I know I haven’t included all of the characters, simply because there are a few I can’t put my finger on or seen enough of them yet.
If I stick with this series (purely for the political intrigue thus far), you’ll be sure to see my review of the rest of the series in another 7 episodes.
Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) playing the 'alpha' with three of his velociraptors in Jurassic World.
John Hammond’s dream may finally have come true in Jurassic World, but it’s the only thing separating it from the other three films in the Jurassic Park franchise. It was the typical run of the mill Jurassic plot – dinosaur escapes, run away, hunt it down – that closely echoed the events of the first two films, Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. InGen and the director getting their just desserts in the jaws of a dinosaur was pretty typical too.
The only thing Jurassic World had going for it was the performance by leads Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt. The pair really carried the narrative as operations manager Claire Dearing and Owen Grady, former Navy man and velociraptor ‘alpha’. I didn’t much like Claire at the start, thinking she was going to be just another damsel in distress, but she really came into her own in her quest to save her nephews, and her adversarial-to-romantic relationship with Owen provided a few laughs along the way.
Claire leading the T-Rex out with the flare so it could fight the I-Rex, torn skirt, high-heels and all (which I thought was pretty kickass) turns out is just an echo from scenes in Jurassic Park with Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum distracting a T-Rex. So, once again, originality in this film was severely lacking.
Don’t even get me started on the pteranodons wreaking havoc…
The velociraptors are my favourite dinosaurs (along with the compsognathus) and it was great to see them have yet another central part in Jurassic World as siblings Charlie, Echo, Delta and Blue. They could have really come into their own in this film, but sadly in the end they were just Grady’s pets.
I was really looking forward to Jurassic World, but it didn’t live up to expectation. If you’re expecting an original plot with just as much teeth, blood, and running as the other films then you’re sadly disappointed.
There was nothing new with this film, apart from a dinosaur solely cooked up in a test tube, dog-like trained velociraptors and an up and running theme park.
If you’re looking for a great film, try the other three Jurassic Park films.
Art Parkinson, Alexandra Daddario and Hugo Johnstone-Burt in San Andreas.
San Andreas would have to be one of the best films I’ve seen all year (so far), up there with all of Marvel’s films in action sequences and CGI. San Andreas is also one of the best disaster films I’ve seen since The Day After Tomorrow and for me that’s saying a lot. Here’s why (warning: spoilers ahead):
Great casting.
I loved Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in this film, particularly because he was a ‘family man’ right from the get-go and went above and beyond, not only in protecting his family, but also as a rescue pilot. Yeah, sure he was tough, but he also had his vulnerabilities and wasn’t afraid to show them. He’d lost one of his daughters in a kayaking accident, never really gotten over it and felt like it was his fault. Subsequently he had this fear of losing his estranged wife, Emma (Carla Gugino) and remaining daughter, Blake (Alexandra Daddario).
I didn’t really have much respect for Emma until she delivered that kick-ass ‘I’m going to kill you’ speech to her boyfriend Daniel Riddick (Ioan Gruffud) and evolved into this no-nonsense, ‘let’s go and get our daughter’ mum. She really grew a backbone after that phone call and for me her best moment would have to have been when she drove the IRB through the window of Daniel’s building. Great thinking and a symbol of her severing her final ties with Daniel and truly sticking with her family (at least that’s how I interpreted it).
Ever since seeing King Arthur all those years ago I’ve been in love with Ioan Gruffudd (loving him right now in Forever, stay tuned for my review on that). It was great to see him play a bit of a dick – no scratch that – a dick in this film, as Emma’s love interest and wealthy real-estate developer. It was so awesome to finally see him getting his comeuppance in the end after leaving Blake trapped and alone in the parking garage (so not step-father material, I might add) and shoving every other poor soul in to the line of fire (as it where) to save his own skin.
I absolutely adored brothers Ben (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) and Ollie (Art Parkinson) (hey, not just because they were British :p). I loved Ben from the moment he spilt his coffee down his shirt front. The fact that he was Blake’s love interest and so awkward was just the icing on the cake. The moment he saved Blake from the parking garage I knew he was another character to add to my “please do not die” list that grew with every passing moment of the film (Paul Giamatti’s character, Caltech seismologist Lawrence Hayes was securely on this list after the Hoover Dam incident). And how could you resist a cute little genius like Ollie. So good to see Art Parkinson back on the big screen after Dracula Untold and particularly because I’ve missed him on Game of Thrones.
Now, let’s not forget Blake. She wasn’t your typical run of the mill teenager or damsel in distress. Even when she was trapped in the parking garage screaming for help she didn’t lose her head or her cool. She was constantly on her toes and both times she was saved she was strong. She never resigned herself to the fact that it was pretty likely she would die. And she had a good head on her shoulders, due in part to her dad, but still. I don’t how the boys in the film would’ve survived without her (they probably wouldn’t have :p).
Action.
Boy was I on the edge of my seat with this film. So much anticipation and apprehension. Plenty of twists and turns (or should I say rolls?) to keep any action buff more than satisfied. The film was up and running way before the first quake hit which was so refreshing. The plot never dragged on at all, it was nail-biting scene, after nail-biting scene, after nail-biting scene…you probably get my point.
The only let down with this movie would have to be the rather pathetic ending. It was flat and disappointing after all of the nail-biting action. It appeared that the writers ran out of steam, surprising since the film’s had a lot of writers and re-writes.
So, if you want to emerge from a film with no nails, empty sweat glands and an irrational fear of mother nature, I would definitely recommend seeing San Andreas.
I know it’s long overdue since the series wrapped up a while ago, but here is the long-awaited review of Gallipoli which has been sitting in my draft folder since I don’t know when!
The rest of the series proved just as powerful as the first episode, but it was the action and not the characters that really made this series.
Tolly grew from a boy into a man over the course of the series, as any person would having had to confront the darkest parts of himself, particularly being a sniper for a time. However, that said, we never really got to know what he was like as a character, and I think that was because his flashbacks home only seemed to reinforce his crush on his brother’s girl. Because the campaign was largely told through his eyes and narration, he was more of a vehicle for the narrative than anything else.
It would have been nice to see more of the Anzacs and just not Australian troops. The only episode we really saw the New Zealand forces was the one in which Chunuk Bair featured (Episode 5 “The Breakout”). To me that was the most powerful moment of the series and the moment the audience truly understood the stupidity of the British officers and tacticians, watching all of these men mowed down and the New Zealanders fight hand to hand with the Turks (albeit with a few historical inaccuracies – television certainly likes to “dress” things up).
I learnt the full extent of the Allies propaganda machine with Gallipoli, thanks to the relegation of the reporters to an island off Gallipoli the fact that all but Ashmead Bartlett seemed content to go along with this really opened my eyes as an aspiring journalist.
Gallipoli also opened my eyes to the fact that the Turks and Allies weren’t always fighting or ‘sniping’ each other – The Turks and Aussies shooting each other’s spades and the uneasy alliance in helping one another to bury their dead earlier on in the series.
Although the final episode did not end as powerfully as the first started, it brought the series to a close nicely as the campaign to capture Gallipoli was abandoned. Ending with Tolly shipping out, staring back at the peninsula, left me with a few questions.
What happened to Tolly after the campaign? Did he go on to fight at the Western Front, as so many did? Did he and Celia become an item?
Overall, a good series that did justice to the Gallipoli campaign, but not a series that I’d personally race out to buy on DVD.
Lacey Turner as Molly Dawes in the BBC drama Our Girl.
BBC drama Our Girl aired on TVNZ here in New Zealand last Sunday and since then I’ve been hooked on the 6-episode series, after only watching the pilot over two weekends. Our Girl follows 18-year-old Molly Dawes (Lacey Turner) and her journey to become a Combat Medical Technician in the British Army, to escape her dead-end job, father and cheating boyfriend.
I think what has me hooked on this series is Molly’s character. She’s feisty, courageous and doesn’t take s**** from anybody and to me that’s a powerful woman. But she’s not without her vulnerabilities and that’s what makes her so endearing and more importantly that’s what makes her human and relatable. She loves her family and battles with leaving them behind to find her own purpose in life and she ultimately wants to be loved. Molly’s determination to make her life better and her strength not to give up in the face of diversity really drive her story and coupled with the fact that the narrative is centered around the military really makes this series a winner for me (so far anyway).
It’s also nice to see a strong female character at the center of the militarized narrative for a change. I’ve watched series like Strike Back where there’s been strong female leads, but they didn’t drive and dominate the narrative, so I found I couldn’t engage and relate with the narrative as well as I am with Our Girl. I’m also enjoying the fact that Molly is an army medic, so there’s also that side I haven’t seen before in my television viewing.
Stay tuned, I’ll be back with all of my thoughts on Our Girl in a few weeks.
If you haven’t seen the series, you can check out the trailer for the special and the series below.
Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Wraysford in the BBC's 2012 adaptation of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong.
I’d always wanted to read Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong, but passed over it time and time again perusing bookstores for my next read. But when I stumbled across it in one of my local charity opshops one day over summer, I bought it. Now, buying a book before I’ve read it rarely happens, but in this case I have no regrets. From page one I was enthralled. I took it everywhere. Beach, pool and car, it was my constant companion. But when I reached the last page, I was left feeling bereft. It couldn’t be finished. So, after a little searching I discovered the BBC had adapted the novel to screen in a two-part TV serial. I raced down to JBHIFI and ordered a copy and after an anxious wait of a few days was finally able to watch it.
Birdsong tells the story of Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman whose life course is changed dramatically when he falls in love with Isabelle Azaire, a married woman in Amiens, France, who lives under the controlling and abusive thumb of her husband. However, the views of society and Isabelle’s subsequent fears consume her, so she runs home to Azaire and the relationship between her and Wraysford ultimately ends. Lost without Isabelle, Wraysford finds himself fighting on the Western Front during World War I and spends the course of the war with all of its horrors making peace with both his demons and the loss of Isabelle.
However, as with many book-to-screen adaptations, BBC’s Birdsong did not live up to Faulks’ novel. The power and haunting beauty behind the novel just wasn’t there. Sure, the romance between Stephen Wraysford (Eddie Redmayne) and Isabelle Azaire (Clemence Posey) was captured and portrayed wonderfully by Redmayne and Posey, but it did not carry the all-consuming and desperate passion of the novel that drove Wraysford and Isabelle to risk everything. The real power of the novel, Wraysford’s time at war, was somehow missing from the serial. Yes, a large part of the two episodes was devoted to this part of the story, but I don’t feel that it paid homage to the exploration of the human spirit that the novel did.
It was a shame that the depth and extent of many of the relationships in the novel were not explored, chiefly that between Isabelle and Wraysford, Wraysford and Jeanne, and Wraysford and Jack. Isabelle and Wraysford’s relationship certainly wasn’t covered like the novel, especially because key elements that fleshed out and ultimately destroyed their relationship were not there. Isabelle’s relationship with a German soldier, who she risks everything for in the novel, was absent, removing the weight of Wraysford’s pain at losing her. The questions, did she ever really love him, as he loved her, were left unanswered. Although Wraysford’s relationship with Jeanne (Marie-Josee Croze) was similar to the novel, the reticence between them could have been stronger. After all, in collusion with her sister Isabelle, a big part of his life was being kept from him. The friendship between Wraysford and ‘tunnel rat’ (engineer) Jack Firebrace (Joseph Mawle) was so much deeper in the novel. It was disappointing to say the least that that wasn’t brought to the screen until the very end it seemed, especially regarding what Jack said there was left to look forward to: to love and be loved. His death wasn’t so profound or meaningful. If not that, Wraysford’s relationship with Weir (Richard Madden), which was central to the novel, could have been delved into deeper.
A major disappointment was that society’s view of the war wasn’t touched on and even then only in a few select letters home from the characters. Society’s view of the war, both during and in the aftermath – that distance on the homefront and expectation that every soldier would return to complete normality after what they’d seen and experienced – which was perhaps for me the most powerful revelation in the novel, was the missing piece. The echoes of Sigfrid Sassoon and Wilfred Owen that Faulks carried in his novel just weren’t there in the BBC adaptation.
However, the TV adaptation was not wholly disappointing.
The war scenes, which dominated much of the narrative, were gritty and graphic, if not a little tame, but not as visually dynamic as HBO’s The Pacific. You truly understood Wraysford’s desperation to escape the battlefield and his burden as an officer. The relationship between those in positions of power and the soldiers was nicely explored through both Weir and Wraysford’s relationship with Jack and their journey from one of contempt, distance and disdain for each other to comradeship and friendship. On the whole it was great to see the most powerful and haunting aspect of the novel visualised brought to the screen.
I’m glad that they left out the chapters of Wraysford’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, out of the program. To me, it never really felt too relevant or central to the novel other than a chance for the audience to learn more about Wraysford’s life after the war. The only way I could see it as relevant was how the sacrifices made impacted the freedoms of future generations and how profound the symbol of new life, rebirth and second chances was because of Elizabeth, although this wasn’t particularly fleshed out by Faulks.
Eddie Redmayne captured the character of Wraysford beautifully, particularly his breakdown in the war. His desperation to escape the horrors of the battlefield and what ultimately he felt was a pointless existence after losing Isabelle were wonderfully captured and portrayed by Redmayne. What Redmayne carried just as well as Faulks novel was Wraysford’s disdain of the war and his desire for it to end, which came through the evolution of his relationship with his men, but more importantly the engineers, from one of contempt to mutual respect. Redmayne also did well to capture Wraysford’s time before the war with Isabelle in Amiens, as you understood his passion and eventual love for Isabelle, which was o integral to his journey in the novel.
Overall, the BBC’s adaptation was a just capturing of Faulks’ story and is still well worth a watch.
Square Eyes 