State of Mind

Subpar ladies's channel soap opera disguised as a suspense thriller. The key dramatic features are zoom shots for implying suspense and foreshadowing, and the closeup knowing glance between any two random actors in a scene, during exposition by a third character. That's it, these tricks are repeated over and over. The actors all conventionally attracive according to their role, their delivery style flips from wooden to torrid randomly. Oh, a few actors are also able to throw a smirk on top of the knowing look. The furtive glance may eventually raise its countenance at some point, but I won't be watching to confirm my suspicions, at least one of the thespians may one time have attended the James Woods School of Acting.

It's all you ever wanted in something to clean house to and less, an unintended festival of campy snark.

Whatever happened to British TV drama? From John Major through Tony Blair, the focus of the genre appears to have shifted from social realism to smugly normative women-focused tales about the piddling domestic problems of nice middle class professionals.

(Or perhaps TVNZ doesn't buy the good stuff? Please let that be what it is...)

The writer's long career in soaps probably explains why the dialogue is made up mostly of stale clichés. Niamh Cusack's performance is strong on meaningful looks, each held by the director for at least half a dozen beats longer than they deserve. Baleful looks, however, are a poor substitute for depth of character, if the writer has failed to provide such material for actors to work with.

Of course this is theoretically a thriller, about a murder investigation; but that's not as important as the central character's failing marriage and its attendant problems. Is Cusack's character's husband a complete bastard? Will her son be utterly traumatized by the marriage break up? Making these the central issues isn't a sign of insight -- it indicates a profoundly narcissistic identification by the writer and director with a character who should be getting on with her job.

Lynda La Plante knows how to write this stuff so that it feels as if it matters and involves viewers other than housebound neurotics ; evidently Paula Milne isn't up to the task.

"I thought I'd be locked away in a padded cell and they'd throw away the key" (Thus is a paraphrased snatch of dialogue from "State of Mind".

One wonders in what tangled forest Paula Milne and her co-writer found the magic mushrooms they must have eaten, to create this feeble "whodunnit" and bring such rubbish to our screens. A padded cell should indeed be left available.

Niamh Cusack did her best, (as did the other actors) but surely her talent deserves a better vehicle than this. The height of absurdity has been reached, and this particular "State of Mind" is best buried and forgotten, and certainly not just "placed in a box and locked away in a drawer".

Typical made-for-TV Thriller in the mode of "Cracker" but doesn't really deliver. The plot could have been told in a good episode of "The Bill". Niamh Cusack kept trying to be Amanda Burton in "Silent Witness" which was fairly irritating. Ending too predictable.

The outcome, unexpected. Good turn of events. Pretty well done.