juliroo
Joined Jan 2012
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juliroo's rating
Baby-faced Brendan Coyle does about as well as can be expected with the terrible writing. And that's the high point of the film. Seriously. Even the wigs are bad, much less the writing, directing, and acting. It's almost impossible to care what happens to these characters, because they are boring and stupid. Emily Mortimer in particular is beyond irritating in the ingénue role. Only worth watching if you want to feel old and tired by the end, because this movie drags on so painfully, you'll think the run time is at least twice as long as it actually is. Although, I suppose you could make a drinking game out of it, by, say, taking a shot every time the weather changes to match the character's moods, or every time a character completely overreacts to something, or every time there's an awkward attempt at a beefcake shot featuring Mr. Coyle, or every time you find yourself wondering why Ms. Mortimer has such ridiculously over-sized hair, etc.
Not only does this series utterly fail to stay true to the characters, plot lines, and simple joy and beauty of the novels, it also fails to stay true to the time period in which it is set, and to the basic tenets of good story-telling and film-making. After I watched the first episode or two alone, my roommate asked if we should watch an episode together one night. I said, no, it was late and the episodes were too long. Imagine my surprise when it was revealed that they were only ~45 minutes each. My response: "Well, at least, they feel too long."
Perhaps if the writers weren't trying to jam-pack each episode with divergent plot lines, abrupt changes of mood and character motivation, and (silliest of all) some ghostly mystery or other for Emily to "solve", this series would be bearable. As it is, it's an unholy mess. To make matters worse, more often than not I find myself wondering if the best Canadian actors all go to Hollywood, as that would help to explain the acting, which typically ranges from wooden to melodramatic to simply awful. I give it two stars rather than one only because, every once in a while, one of the actors (usually one of the children) manages to do something legitimately endearing.
Perhaps if the writers weren't trying to jam-pack each episode with divergent plot lines, abrupt changes of mood and character motivation, and (silliest of all) some ghostly mystery or other for Emily to "solve", this series would be bearable. As it is, it's an unholy mess. To make matters worse, more often than not I find myself wondering if the best Canadian actors all go to Hollywood, as that would help to explain the acting, which typically ranges from wooden to melodramatic to simply awful. I give it two stars rather than one only because, every once in a while, one of the actors (usually one of the children) manages to do something legitimately endearing.