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After years of soap operas that may as well have been produced by its commercial counterparts, the ABC has finally managed to pull together a story that doesn't dwell on banal family feuds seemingly drawing inspiration from the recent success of Nordic crime dramas. It is no surprise then that this production has been picked up by both DR and BBC Four. As such, much attempt has been made at ensuring the characters are diverse (though some clichés still manage to slip in) and the tone is serious and purposeful.
However, there are three major issues. The persistent use of hand-held close-ups with shallow depth of field does not add to the sense of gravity and drama, despite the fondest wishes of the cinematographer. Furthermore, the script is not as tightly written as one would hope and thus the depth of relationship between the characters remains rather shallow. Furthermore, following on from this, some of the dialogue verges on the inexplicably melodramatic with very little of the characters' baser motivations revealed through nuance as one would expect.
In any case, once again, it is through drawing inspiration internationally (and not just from US sitcoms) that the ABC has started to move in the right direction towards better (and hopefully eventually) more sophisticated drama.
(I can't believe I'm wasting my time writing this review to help Amazon make more money)
score 9/10
william-chan4 22 September 2014
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3095572/ |
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18-10-2020 11:34:08