douglasscarol123
Joined Sep 2014
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Reviews3
douglasscarol123's rating
A Place to Call Home is a better-than average TV series, with a relative minimum of soap-opera-itis. Elizabeth, the rich, meddling mother, has a squinty-eyed, tight-lipped smile that flashes on and off with unsettling frequency. Veteran actress Noni Hazelhurst gives a performance in the role that flirts with stereotype, but then that's the writing, not the actress.
It's a compelling drama, touching on various issues ripe for change in the social landscape following WWII: the then lamentably puritanical and punishing view of homosexuality and the then lamentably rigid class structure. The series moves from one crisis to the next--what else can a long series do?--and invites thoughtful contemplation of lingering Victorian attitudes.
The only criticism I have, given that this is a TV series and not a work of enduring art, is that beginning about the 16th episode, the main female characters suffer an attack of the Whispering Disease, that annoying and thoroughly bizarre condition in which the actresses are instructed to utter all of their lines in a whisper. Even when only the actress and the person to whom she's talking are in the room, they're apparently unable to talk in anything but a secretive, breathy whisper, as if every action were susceptible to public exposure.
The Whisper, combined with extreme close-ups, has been around for decades, but has gained popularity with directors of TV series in the past 10 years. It's an affectation that purports to add to the dramatic value of a scene, but which results instead in simplistic artificiality.
If you can get past that absurdity, A Place to Call Home is indeed entertaining and absorbing.
It's a compelling drama, touching on various issues ripe for change in the social landscape following WWII: the then lamentably puritanical and punishing view of homosexuality and the then lamentably rigid class structure. The series moves from one crisis to the next--what else can a long series do?--and invites thoughtful contemplation of lingering Victorian attitudes.
The only criticism I have, given that this is a TV series and not a work of enduring art, is that beginning about the 16th episode, the main female characters suffer an attack of the Whispering Disease, that annoying and thoroughly bizarre condition in which the actresses are instructed to utter all of their lines in a whisper. Even when only the actress and the person to whom she's talking are in the room, they're apparently unable to talk in anything but a secretive, breathy whisper, as if every action were susceptible to public exposure.
The Whisper, combined with extreme close-ups, has been around for decades, but has gained popularity with directors of TV series in the past 10 years. It's an affectation that purports to add to the dramatic value of a scene, but which results instead in simplistic artificiality.
If you can get past that absurdity, A Place to Call Home is indeed entertaining and absorbing.
I've watched Land Girls to the bitter end, and feel several IQ points less intelligent now. Really, as other reviewers have said, the series is rife with historical inaccuracies. But as one BBC spokesman said, period pieces don't have to be accurate. Really?
Most annoying to me, though, were the episodes in which Martin, the young boy, gets hit in the face by a barn door. He gets up and walks home, with a bit of a headache. But later, he mentions that he "can't see" a page of writing, although somehow he has no problem getting about.
Some days, or weeks? later, he goes to the doctor and finds out he has "detached retinas" (although he can still see), which means he'll go blind without an operation.
Apparently no one did a blind bit of research on this: In order to have both retinas detach, you'd have to be hit extremely hard on the back of the head, and would have not been trotting around soon after. Also, if your retinas are detached, you simply would not be able to see, and after waiting for weeks for the "operation" it's unlikely that there would still be any viable tissue left. 20 years after this period piece, retinal surgery was still in its infancy, with low rates of success.
Of course the "operation" was a plot device that had consequences that took the series through several episodes.
But really, is it that difficult for script writers to do a bit of research? I think they must count on people being so ignorant about history and other facts that they don't notice glaring errors. Perhaps they think we all have retinal detachments.
Most annoying to me, though, were the episodes in which Martin, the young boy, gets hit in the face by a barn door. He gets up and walks home, with a bit of a headache. But later, he mentions that he "can't see" a page of writing, although somehow he has no problem getting about.
Some days, or weeks? later, he goes to the doctor and finds out he has "detached retinas" (although he can still see), which means he'll go blind without an operation.
Apparently no one did a blind bit of research on this: In order to have both retinas detach, you'd have to be hit extremely hard on the back of the head, and would have not been trotting around soon after. Also, if your retinas are detached, you simply would not be able to see, and after waiting for weeks for the "operation" it's unlikely that there would still be any viable tissue left. 20 years after this period piece, retinal surgery was still in its infancy, with low rates of success.
Of course the "operation" was a plot device that had consequences that took the series through several episodes.
But really, is it that difficult for script writers to do a bit of research? I think they must count on people being so ignorant about history and other facts that they don't notice glaring errors. Perhaps they think we all have retinal detachments.
I wanted to like this movie, having read all of Louise Penney's atmospheric, intelligent, introspective books featuring Armand Gamache. How disappointing to find that all that has been reduced to soap opera standards. There is in the movie none of the sensitivity, insight, philosophizing that makes the books so compelling. The cast is impossibly good looking, with that plastic, every-hair-in-place, perfect make-up at all times look so common to made-for-TV movies. The characters, instead of being complex and unpredictable, are stilted, their utterances short, too fast, emotionless--a sign of poor direction and/or poor acting. The use of that husky, almost-whisper voice (who talks like that?) also betrays the cookie-cutter approach to this movie. Scenes are very short, pushing the plot ahead in only the barest, least thought-provoking manner. It's a shame to see Penney's deeply thoughtful works reduced to such shallowness. It was peculiar, as well, to see what Penney describes as the surreal, provocative artwork of murder-victim Jane,(thus killing off a main and recurring character in the books) represented as poorly-rendered American Primitive. Have the producers/director no loyalty to the books at all? If Penney is one of the executive producers, as referred to in other reviews, I cannot imagine that she feels the movie faithfully represents her literary work. I doubt, too, that she had much to say about it.