Behaving Badly

This TV mini-series is as relevant today - perhaps more so - with respect to its refreshing examination on attitudes towards aging. Judi Dench is marvelous as a middle aged divorcée who defies conventional wisdom and the expectations placed upon a woman in such circumstances by her family and contemporary society. Viewers may find some discomfort in the early parts of the series as the Dench character maneuvers to turn these expectations on their head. However, the clever script and top notch performances by a first rate supporting cast, should raise insights into the double standards regarding sexual roles, as well as discriminatory attitudes regarding generational differences. Co-stars include Ronald Pickup, Joely Richardson and Frances Barber.

Well, this is definitely a story with flaws, but I took it to be more of a work in the tradition of dry British comedy, and enjoyed it as such. It isn't quite light-hearted enough or fast-paced enough as comedy, but the situations are so clearly ridiculous, and one does so enjoy seeing the dirtbag husband placed in such awkward predicaments, I can't say I'm sorry to have watched it. Among the flaws are a serious miscasting of the part of Rebecca with Frances Barber. I am an admirer of Ms. Barber's acting, but frankly, she is simply too old for this part. Instead of looking at least 20 years younger than Judi Dench, she looks more like maybe only 10 years younger. And Ms. Barber has a rather worldly look about her (due to age, I suppose) that doesn't make the points this series attempts to make about age as clearly as it wants. All in all, I'd have to say this was an unbelievably poor mistake. The mother in law is rather tedious, but even so, she had her moments of the fantastic. I can understand that there are few people who would find this entertaining, but for what it's worth, I enjoyed it.

I started to watch this - I rented it and I'm not sure that I'm sorry. It is unbearably slow to start with, and as a previous comment has said, the mother-in-law was excruciating, so much so in fact that I started fast-forwarding her by the third installment; it didn't affect the story. (It's not as though there are no older women in the British film or television industry, who could act. The story was simple but silly - hard to imagine a middle-aged woman in such circumstances simply moving back to the marital home after five years; hard to imagine a hard-core black baptist church in Croydon (am I wrong? have I been away too long?) and hard to imagine a daughter as this one is; also that there was no autopsy on the old man? Well knitted all together, it begins to work by episode 3, to the extent that I wanted to see what happens. The ending is so improbable it's lovely. You know from discussion that it may not last, but she doesn't care. And neither did I. I think by then I was numb. This production was a bit of a conundrum - all these very clever people doing something so mediocre.

I don't believe there are so many negative reviews of this brilliant series. There is nothing as comparable in today's TV fare - mostly crime and police series! How refreshing it was to have a series so well scripted, directed and acted about PEOPLE for a change. The USA is lucky in that practically everything seems available on DVD. I wish this series were to be released on Region 2 DVD! How lucky we are though to have 4OD where i was able to see this series again. There is a rich vein of archive material in the vaults of our TV and film studios which should more easily be accessed. In Britain we are not even getting the very best films from the MGM archive on DVD.