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By my count, there were eight victims of Mary Ann Cotton (Joanne Froggatt) in this story, about half the body count she left behind according to a closing narrative following the picture, where it stated that she might have been responsible for thirteen to twenty one deaths by poisoning. Pretty gruesome by anyone's standards, but thinking about the era in which they occurred, it doesn't sound impossible given the absence of extensive forensic autopsies or investigation of potential criminal behavior. For her part, Mary Ann came off as a stone cold executioner against anyone who stood in her way of achieving a degree of personal and financial security. Even the accidental death of her own daughter, for which she did show some remorse, was quickly forgotten in her quest to achieve upward mobility at a time and place when people born into their particular circumstances were generally expected to live out their lives in pretty much the same manner. Oddly, there were times when Mary Ann virtually admitted her complicity in certain deaths around her, though anyone who came close to guessing were summarily dealt with, her own mother a case in point. Interestingly, reviewers here refer to this presentation as both a two part television mini-series and as a full length movie, but my library copy offered the story in three separate installments. Though the murderess Ms. Cotton ultimately had to pay for her hideous crimes is foretold in the opening sequence of the story, it's a statement made by her lover Joe Nattrass (Jonas Armstrong) that resonates throughout the latter half of the picture when he off-handedly remarks - "For be sure our sins will find us out".
score 7/10
classicsoncall 3 August 2019
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw5037350/ |
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23-11-2020 03:23:11