Robert Hiini

A cut above all the other English crime drama dramas of the past decade. The main actors make it. The sentimentality is thankfully lacking. It's not memorable, but it isn't wet and it's very watchable. For heaven's sake, keep this thing on air and junk all of the appalling dross - the Sisters, the Fathers and the "gritty" stuff. Very glad the Downton aesthetic is missing, too.

Everyone in the film is slightly mad. They can only take so much. In response to a man's remembrance of a good woman, the young woman at the film's end, on learning the aforementioned woman is dead, says, "Well, then, so what?" Seems to me the central question of this brilliant and searching film.

Male character hangs around to provide fulfillment for the female protagonist, who is not overly likeable. And the "time anomaly" is treated with a too-knowing smarm that make the protagonists look small and unlikeable. The ending - where the dying mum is also an adornment of meaning for the central character - is overwrought, made especially so by the accompanying music. Stock standard stuff, missed opportunity.

My companion fell asleep and began snoring, taking best advantage of the price of his ticket. If you know the Dickens story, this film butchers it beyond recognition. Admittedly, it was advertised as a kind of loose adaptation, but there's a point beyond which such a thing becomes a grotesque exercise in self-indulgence and bourgeois smuggery. The only light is provided by Hugh Laurie (re gingerbread) and a line from Peter Capaldi's Micawber about living al fresco. Everything else is forced - Dickens rendered incoherent and sentimental. And the waste of acting talent is similarly criminal. The visuals are very impressive, but as in the recent adaptation of Emma, they cannot make up up for the shallow treatment of the story and its characters (Incidentally, the BBC adaptation of David Copperfield of 20 or so years ago is still marvellous.)

Just played the final season, episode 1. Vale Telltale, I will miss you.