Morte Súbita

This series made me want to weep - at the senseless waste of acting talent and script material. For this is not a TV dramatization of "The Casual Vacancy" by J. K. Rowling. It's a TV dramatization of the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of The Casual Vacancy. What's more, it appears that slashing it down from a full series to a 3 part synopsis was done after filming already started, probably by the director tearing pages out on the set, rather than by intelligent script writers. How else to explain the presence of all the characters from the book, yet no role - not even dialog - for some of them? How else to explain all the setups in Episode 1 that are just left hanging with no follow-up? What does remain is excellent, completely capturing Rowling's characterizations and the petty snobbery of English village life, but the ruthless editing leaves too much out and too many loose ends. There's no exploration of the interaction between children and parents that is core to the book. There's no hint of who is behind the "ghost", a major plot device. Sukhvinder, who has a life-changing experience in the original, is literally seen but not heard. There's no resolution for the dysfunctional Price family. I don't know why the scriptwriters even bothered telling us Gaia's name, since she's reduced to a walk-on extra.

What's left, basically, is an excellent performance from Michael Gambon and Julia McKenzie as the Mollisons. It's worth watching just for that. But that's the tragedy of this series - these are the canonical Morrisons, nobody will ever do it better. And that means the series will never be remade, and the full story will never be told.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book but feel that this adaptation was an utter let down. The book needed very little work to adapt to the screen but instead new relationships were invented and old ones ignored throughout. The original characters were lost, the cast contained good actors but several were miscast, the hallucinations (with Death) were ridiculous. I was really looking forward to this show but I think whoever was in charge utterly missed the point - other than trying to portray real characters, and even in this attempt I believe the changes they made to how characters behaved meant that in the big picture relationships didn't work properly and characters were shallow. They should have stayed true to the book instead of altering nearly every aspect.

Written and produced by ...JK Rowling, of Potter films inc. It's a three part mini-series. We're ten minutes into part one, and nothing yet. But, it gets going fast! Turns out a couple of richers want to turn the community center land into a "wellness retreat", which should make someone a lot of money. But the board of Pagford has a responsibility to keep the center open, helping the locals. It's all very ethereal... when the lead supporter of the council can't do it any more, they want to fill the spot with someone who will back the new wellness center. But... some of the locals who depend on the community center step in.. in various ways. The vote is approaching... who will fill the vacant spot? And who is uncovering secrets that need to be uncovered? It's pretty interesting. Sense of drama and suspense. Directed by Jonny Campbell. Had directed the remakes of Dracula and Westworld.

Good but not great BBC/HBO series, should appeal to fans of Penguin Classics—there's a bit of Trollope (many pairs of knickers in a twist over a parish council election), Dickens (broad social satire, mostly aimed at the snobbish, hypocritical bourgeoisie), all the way up through Margaret Drabble and Jane Gardam (class conflict and social pathology in a microcosmic village).

The script has the usual problems of a long, populous novel that's been sliced and diced for television. The first two eps were quite involving, the third kind of rushed; prob'ly should have had a fourth to fill out the backstory and tie up some loose ends. I felt sorry for some of the minor characters, like Gaia and Sukhvinder, who had to hang around forever waiting for their one or two tiny scenes.

Good work by the usual suspects—Michael Gambon, Keeley Hawes, Rory Kinnear as the goodhearted lawyer whose death creates the casual vacancy (on the local council—it's complicated…), Julia McKenzie as a real-life Miss Marple (i.e. sneaky Thatcherite grandma). Abigail Lawrie is amazing, in her first professional role, as the series's secret heroine, a tough girl called Krystal. Haven't read the book, but I agree that what another reviewer called the "water downed" ending was not very satisfying.

The acting is good and a with complex plot from Rowling but over-all not worth my time. None of the characters were really appealing or convincing (except for the dead ones) and I could not really engage with the story-line. Considering everything, i can't recommend this film. I stuck it out it the end but finally I was sorry I bothered.