Beaten

Domestic violence with a twist. Not what you expect at all. It took me by surprise. Defo worth a watch.

Gritty and British nearly always add up to a successful viewing for me. I love films, shorts or series based on real and harrowing events in the lives of people from my own homeland.

This tends to make me very accepting of the varying production standards and levels of talent on show but, unfortunately, "Beaten" falls way below many other such art in the same vein.

The acting is inconsistent. From the sublime handling of a difficult subject, to the GCSE drama levels of hammy. But sometimes the writing is such that Pacino would be crying on the inside whilst delivering the poorer than first draft dialogue.

The twist is obvious after a certain point, but I don't hold that against it as the "twist" is perhaps the most overused plot device in modern film. When a tale is worth telling, why the reluctance to let the reality be the intriguing factor? And twists, for me, have no place at all in my favourite genre.

To say this would be been improved by Robson duetting with Jerome is unfortunately how far this one fell short.

This TV film surprised me. The first half hour or so looked so much like melodrama that I found myself distracted by conversations with family members. The main characters - husband and wife, Michael and Stephanie - seemed elusive, and even a trifle stereotyped. Wrong!!! This is a story of domestic violence, but the full story, the real story is not fully revealled until the final 2-3 minutes, and what a story that is! What we see, what we're given during the exposition of the film is not the whole story. We're given mere pieces of flash-back, and nothing truly adds up or makes sense until the final dramatic scene. I was then quite shocked by my own judgements about the characters, obviously formed from my personal prejudices.

The lead roles are skillfully crafted by both the writer, Alison Hume, and by the two lead actors, Robson Green and Saira Todd - Todd in particular walks a fine line in her performance as the ambitious, but edgy and wounded wife. In looking back, her Stephanie gave away a lot of 'truths' throughout the film, but which were easy to overlook, but obvious in hindsight.

This film shows scenes of domestic violence, so is not for everyone, but it's definitely worth a look.

This movie was very well acted. You really need to watch attentively to the flashbacks. It has a twist.

It was so slow omg! I almost fell asleep. It's easy to see what this "plot twist" was going to be. I'm not that impressed with it.