The Moorside

Found this disappointing. It told the story from mostly From Karen Matthews friend, Julie's viewpoint. It didn't tell us anything new from what was reported at the time. It didn't show much of the police investigation. The ending felt like an afterthought. Trying to make excuses for what she did and suggesting it was everyone else fault than her own.

I did agree that in all honesty she wasn't evil just misguided and was overwhelmed by what happened. While she wanted and enjoyed the attention, once the estate was involved it was hard to find a way out.

However it did not ever really show her in a bad light or confirm she was involved. It also didn't show how the estate felt about being lied too when they were so passionate about finding the girl.

It was acted well but it didn't tell us anything you can't read about on the internet. It also seemed to be saying that if you are poor then you can't be held responsible for your actions. The estate was also shown as all wonderful people. I have worked for Kirklees Council in Dewsbury on a number of occasions. While there are some lovely people there, some people are really awful. A shame this was so much of a lecture and waste of a decent cast.

The true story behind this two-part drama is not really known in the U.S. so the reviews from the U.K. with spoilers or references to the real story won't mean much to those of us from elsewhere. I found it a very interesting story about rough living and choices for those in difficult situations with seeminly limited options. The directing, editing, and score bring to life a neighborhood and neighbors in the best and worst of circumstances, and the acting by all the female leads is absolutely tremendous.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

A dramatisation of the real life tale of Shannon Matthews, a nine year old girl from the Dewsbury area of Yorkshire, who went missing for a short while in early 2008, and sparked a nationwide appeal for her safe return (but received substantially less coverage than Madeleine McCann, from a more affluent background...but who's never been found.) Julie Bushby (Sheridan Smith), a close friend of Shannon's wayward mother Karen (Gemma Whelan), spearheaded the local community into action, and all the local residents turned out to look for Shannon in a unified show of solidarity, while Karen's behaviour was just disinterested and odd. Eventually, in what appeared to be a rare happy ending for this type of case, Shannon was found...but the truth, in it's own way, was as earth shattering as if she hadn't, when it was discovered Shannon had been abducted by her own mother and her friend Michael Donavan (Sam Chapman), while her current partner Craig Meehan (Tom Hansen) was arrested for possessing child pornography.

There are many who subscribe to the mediums of film and television, strictly as a means of escapism, to retreat into a world of fantasy, with limitless possibilities and an almost certainly predetermined happy ending. There is not much interest, from these people, in seeing re-enactments of tales constrained by the boundaries of real life, even happy tales, played out with all the grubby, unavoidable trappings of reality. A tale set somewhere like Dewsbury Moor, a place that perfectly encapsulates the gritty, unglamorous surroundings/way of life that are probably the norm for a no doubt many unidentified number among us. In bringing this dramatisation to the screen. director Paul Whittington has shoved this bleak landscape straight in our face and left us to witness the car crash that proceeded.

In what appears to be the most meagre common ground with a fantasy film as opposed to the hard, brutal depiction of reality that it is, the lead character is the good guy, or certainly the person with the most noble intentions, even at the expense of not really being the main antagonist of the story. In this role, as the bright, bubbly spark of flickering decency in a sea of relentlessly, depressingly immoral, grubby people, Sheridan Smith truly exemplifies what a terrific actress she is, demonstrating her ability to transform and really immerse herself into any role she's doing, and really bringing the character of Julie Bushby to life like no other. The supporting performers are also strikingly accurate, but it is truly her who steals the show.

The dichotomy of Matthews is simply as a figure who took dysfunctional to a whole new level, who skipped her appearance on The Jeremy Kyle Show and gained public notoriety in a different, far more shocking way. The Daily Mail/Tory Party would probably have you believe she's symptomatic of hundreds of others across the country, and while that's most likely very debatable, this is still a well made and hauntingly accurate portrayal, spread out over two series, of a case that'll probably never be forgotten. *****

A wonderful program and Sheridan Smith shines in this (she does in everything she is in). These are the kind of programs I love and the UK is easily the best at making them. I didn't know too many of the details before watching but looking back on old news stories refreshed my memory. If you like gritty UK dramas, you'll love this.

The standout performance here is Gemma Whelan's -- very real, memorably so, and, if you'll forgive the cliché, brave. (Reminded me of Lorraine Stanley, similarly brilliant in "London to Brighton.") I'm always impressed when an actress who, on the evidence of photos, normally looks clever and pretty can play a character as fat, dumb, weak, and unattractive as Shannon Matthews (and can make her genuinely interesting).

Among the remarkably unappealing folk of Moorside (coarse, creepy, loutish-looking men, pulpy obese women, all speaking in almost unintelligible Yorkshire accents), the neighbor played by Siân Brooke, relatively slim, soft-spoken, and beautiful, stuck out like another species. I admit to finding her the most sympathetic character in the drama.

However, the story's heroine is clearly supposed to be Julie Bushby, the self-appointed community leader, played by Sheridan Smith. She struck me as somewhat obnoxious and self-important in the first episode, and I was pleased to see her taken down a peg, if only briefly, in the second.

The way she rallied the neighborhood on behalf of the missing girl seemed useless and rather ridiculous -- parades, candlelight vigils, singalongs, etc. -- but maybe the Moorsiders actually went in for such virtue-signaling stunts. At one point episode 2 actually has them singing Kumbaya.

This drama was marred, for me, by a few scenes of horribly contrived preachiness and exposition, especially one in which Brooke and Smith discuss pedophilia. The dialogue seemed totally fake. (It was also marred, in places, by sloppy editing, such as a scene between four women in a car that focuses so disproportionately on three of them that you wonder if the fourth, played by the ubiquitous Siobhan Finneran, is even in the car with them.)

The biggest surprise, for me, was how pleasant, or at least not shabby and ugly, the Moorside council estate is. While the individual houses are crowded together, as in any development, they look, at least on the outside, fairly attractive -- quite a contrast to the multilevel council flats one sees in many movies.