346. Web-series Reviews – 164

More web-series reviews…

Back to Life – 2 seasons from 2019 to 2021. After 18 years behind bars, Miri Matteson returns home and stumbles back into adult life in the claustrophobic coastal town she once knew in this half-hour comedy series. Miri attempts to rekindle old relationships, make new ones, look for work and readjust to life outside, while desperately waiting for the world to forget about what happened on that fateful night.

A review from IMDB...

"Back to Life" (2019 release from the UK; 6 episodes of 30 min. each) brings the story of Miri, a woman in her late thirties who tries to adjust "back to life" after serving an 18 yr. prison term. As Episode 1 opens, we shift back and forth between a job interview Miri is doing (and trying to explain--or avoid to explain--the 18 year gap in her resume), and her release from prison, moving back home with her parents in the most awkward of ways (mom hurriedly takes away and hides the kitchen knives, etc.). At this point we are 10 min. into the first episode.

Couple of comments: this TV series is a labor of love from British actress Daisy Haggard (best known in the US for her role in several of the Harry Potter franchise of movies). Haggard created the series and of course stars as Mir. The premise of the series is a simple as can be: a woman tries to reintegrate into society after serving an 18 yr. prison term. It's in the execution of that premise that this series shines: things are far more awkward than we had imagined, even more so as this is set in a small coastal town (think: Bournemouth or Brighton) where everyone knows everyone. And then there is this: WHY did Miri serve such a long prison term? (That is eventually revealed in Episode 3.) Even though this is billed as a "comedy", there really aren't any "laugh out loud" moments. Instead it's a chuckle here and a chuckle there, as we feel empathy for Miri's difficulties on her road "back to life". Please note that "Back to Life" is a British series, and is correlating "Brit-heavy", which for some US viewers may be perplexing or even off-putting. I found it charming (but then again, I grew up in nearby Belgium).

"Back to Life" premiered in the UK this past Spring to critical acclaim, and this is now showing on Showtime (and available on VOD platforms). I have very much enjoyed this mini-series, including for all of its quirkiness and oddities. Haggard shines throughout, and gets great acting support. Here's hoping for a second season of this, as "Back to Life" is a WINNER.

My Take – An ok watch!

 

The Undoing – Came in 2020. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant! Grace Fraser is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. She's a successful therapist, has a devoted husband and young son who attends an elite private school in New York City. Overnight a chasm opens in her life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself.

A review from IMDB...

Better late than never, this Bank Holiday weekend I finally found the time to catch up with "The Undoing", another of 2020's zeitgeist shows that I missed at the time. I don't think I've got any grand new perspective to offer here, I found it a well-acted drama, with a couple of interesting twists, but with an ending that I found a little underwhelming.

The life of privilege that Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) enjoys begins to unravel when her husband Jonathan (Hugh Grant) is accused of murder. The victim is Elena Alves (Matilda De Angelis) an artist, whose son attends the same school as the Frasers son, Henry (Noah Jupe). Grace learns that Jonathan has been hiding aspects of his life from her for years, not least that he and Elena have been having an affair.

So what did I really think? I thought that it was reasonably enjoyable. I liked the fact that the episodes often ended on cliff-hangers, or with potentially major reveals, however, they were a little less effective than they might be, given that I watched the whole series over a couple of days. The performances were reasonably good. Hugh Grant's recent renaissance continues with his turn as a the duplicitous but generally engaging Jonathan. I would, perhaps, like to see Nicole Kidman show a bit more range again, as this is another rich, wife, victim role straight after "Big Little Lies". Edgar Ramirez is a little wasted in a generic detective role. Donald Sutherland, perhaps like Nicole, could do with playing something other than rich, emotionally distant roles for a while. Nobody noticeable lets the side down though.

I was with the plot until then end. This is hard to talk about without spoilers and the show is really one big reveal of who killed Elena. . . But I'll say this, I don't think that the reveals on the final day of the court case would have been as damning as they are made out to be. Nor did I find the events of the last few scenes to be as interesting or satisfactory a conclusion as I hoped.

It's all fine, don't get me wrong, a good enough story elevated by some star power - it just didn't merit the hype it had at the time.

My take – An ok watch!

 

Seven Seconds – Came in 2018. In an instant, life is forever changed for Brenton Butler and his family. After a white cop accidentally hits and critically injures a black teenager, a northeastern city explodes with racial tensions, an attempted cover-up and its aftermath, and the trial of the century.

A review from IMDB...

Seven Seconds centers on a Jersey City PD narcotics team, and their possible cover-up of the hit and run of a black teenage boy. The team is headed by Sgt. Mike DiAngelo (a chilling David Lyons), resilient and respected among his team, and officers within the department. Mike, who has no children of his own, takes young, and mostly naïve, officers under his wing and shows them the ropes with some tough-love and conditioning. Think Denzel Washington's character in Training Day and you'll get a really good idea of Mike DiAngelo's personality.

DiAngelo's newest recruit is the young, soon-to-be-a-daddy, Pete Joblonski, a cop transferred in from a "better part of the city", at DiAngelo's behest. The two share a loose familial bond; but that's enough for DiAngelo to vouch for Pete and to know that he can trust him to fall-in-line when needed. Narc veterans "Manny" Gary Wilcox (a convincing Patrick Murney) and Felix Osorio (a shining Raúl Castillo) round-out the four-man Special Investigations and Gang Unit of the JCPD. This team will do virtually anything for their leader...no, scratch that, will do anything at all for DiAngelo. He is a god in their eyes.

It's the early-morning hours after Valentines Day, and Pete is rushing to the hospital to meet his pregnant wife. The roads are slick, the snow is falling. Pete is distracted on the phone. Without a visible cue to the audience, Pete slams on the breaks and wipes out. He's fine, but what's under the car is not. Thankfully, we're spared from the gory view. All we see is a bicycle tire spinning, and a homemade paper seagull attached to the frame...the significance of which becomes quite compelling when we do learn the nature of the two.

The driver of the bicycle is a young, black teenager named Brenton; a suspected "banger" from Jersey City's most feared gang. DiAngelo, with the rest of his team in the backseat of his seized-from-a-drug-dealer sports car, arrive on scene to find Pete still behind the wheel of his slightly damaged SUV, and a blood trail leading to a ditch. It's one's moral duty to render aid to someone who is injured. This thought would cross anyone's mind when seeing someone critically hurt, but a cop....well, they're obligated to help.

DiAngelo follows the blood trail to a ditch where he finds Brenton's broken body, and a serious pool of blood. What does he do? What any selfish cop would do. Fearing an incredible backlash from the (mostly black) community over the recklessness of a white cop's actions against a black kid, DiAngelo orders Pete to leave the scene, and instructs the rest of the team to clean up the evidence. Forget about the kid in the ditch, "He's nothing."

The boy's parents, devoted and pious Latrice and Isiah Butler (the brilliant Regina King and the marvelous Russell Hornsby) also become victims - right from the get go. Victims of an anachronistic system where the black population are at a disadvantage starting from birth. Does anyone care about their rights? Does anyone care about Brenton? As the story plays out over the full 10-episodes, we discover the answers to those questions and get an intimate look at why "Cops don't go to jail", especially if the victim is black.

The series has many twists and turns, most will be of the "blind-sided" type. This isn't your typical, "I know what's coming next" kind of plot, even though the story may seem similar to you. For whatever reason, we have this insatiable appetite for police procedural TV, going back at least 60-years with "77 Sunset Strip" (1958 - 1964). Hawaii Five-0, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, Law and Order, LA Law, CSI, to name a few more. Certainly, there are a lot of shows on TV that "play the race card" and attack police for their bias. I admit I was a little skeptical of Seven Seconds at first because of that. Like those silly "coming of age" movies I'm so sick of watching, has this topic not been done enough? Are we not yet bored by dramatizations of white vs. black, race on race, BS shows? Why do we need to see another?

According to one website, of the last two-decades, ¼ of the top-40 shows on television are police-procedural. I've seen them all (shows like NYPD Blue, Law and Order, Homeland, The Wire) and there isn't a single show within the group of 10 that, at some point, didn't deal with race-relations and police bias. Most were fictional, some based on true events. The sad truth is, without real life stories, the writers would have nothing to write about, and we'd have a lot less TV to watch.

There is an element of truth to Seven Seconds. The series seems plausible, especially to those (black or white) who have had some dealings with the law. Mentions of the Ferguson, Missouri shooting come up, as do other similar real-life occurrences that have happened. We are reminded, again, of how archaic some things, some people are. Sadly.

This series is powerful, and moving, make no mistake. The characters are deep and complex. They have flaws and secrets. They are like you, me, and our neighbor. The production value is what you would expect from Netflix; no expense is spared to make everything as realistic as possible.

A favorite quote of mine is by Dante. It goes, "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."

That moral crisis is race relations within our own community, specifically with police. This has always been an issue during my lifetime (I'm middle-aged), as it was during my parents' and my grandparents'. Whether the place you call home is Jersey City, or Ferguson, or where I'm from, we have all seen parts of "Seven Seconds" play-out in real life. I know I have, in more ways than one. That's what makes this series hurt so much.

My Take – A compelling watch!

Cheers till next time😊!