Category Archives: Possibly depressing

2017, Alcoholism, Amazon Prime Acorn, Basically Sad, Blackmail, Character Driven, Clever Plot, Complicated, Crime, Detective, Divorce, Ethical struggles, Extramarital Affair, False Imprisonment, Family Conflict, Farm Life, Father-son relations, Financial malfeasance, Forensics, Gangs, Human trafficking, Lawyers, Lesbian Theme, Longsuffering wife, Love Triangle, Money Laundering, Mother-son relations, Murder, Murder Investigation, Murder Trial, Occasionaly violent, Office Love Affairs, Personal Betrayal, Police Culture, Possibly depressing, Prison, Ruthless Killer, Suspense, Trial Scenes, Unhappy Marriage, Welsh detectives

Keeping Faith (2017)

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From Amazon Prime Acorn,

Season 1: 8 one hour episodes.

Award-winning actress Eve Myles (Torchwood) stars in this BBC thriller as Faith Howells, a lawyer with a happy marriage until her husband suddenly disappears. As Faith becomes the police’s prime suspect, her search for the truth leads her to the criminal underbelly of her quiet town.

Season 2: 6 one hour episodes.

A year after her husband’s disappearance, Faith (BAFTA Award winner Eve Myles) is drawn into a new mystery in this BBC thriller set along the stunning Welsh coast.

Season 3: 6 one hour episodes.

In the final season, Faith deals with her divorce, one of the most complex legal cases of her career, and her mother returning, threatening to expose long-buried secrets.

So far Kathy and I have seen the first two seasons and watching is a bit exhausting. Faith repeatedly has to face the challenges of her career and well as many personal problems, especially the betrayals of people near her.  Poor Faith never gets a moment’s rest. Season two does not end well for any of the characters. After abandoning Faith for awhile we will return to season 3. which promises to present Faith with even more wrenching difficulties.

Despite her trials and tribulations, the complicated plots  are well done.  Some of the bad guys are especially villainous.  Although each season brings its plot to conclusion, there is a continuity of themes and characters throughout all the seasons.

Well worth the watch. Just don’t expect to come away happy.

2017, Acceptable for teenagers, Alzheimer's disease, Amazon Prime, Basically Sad, British, Could Be Hard To Watch, DO NOT MISS, Drama, Flashbacks, Missing Person, Mother-daughter relations, Murder, Mystery Film, PBS Masterpiece Streaming, Police Investigation, Possibly depressing, Wonderful acting

Elizabeth Is Missing (2019)

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From PBS.org:

Returning to television for the first time in nearly three decades, two-time Academy Award®–winner Glenda Jackson stars as a woman desperately trying to solve two mysteries as she declines ever deeper into dementia, in Elizabeth Is Missing, an adaptation of Emma Healey’s acclaimed novel.

From PBS Passport currently you can stream this 1 hour 27 minute film.  Amazon Prime requires that you pay to stream.

Again from PBS.org:

Jackson astounded critics during the UK broadcast of Elizabeth Is Missing in late 2019. “Glenda Jackson shines in this heartrending whodunnit” (The Guardian); “Jackson gave one of the performances of her lifetime” (The Daily Telegraph); “Jackson is remarkable” (The Independent); “a devastatingly real performance” (The Times); “brilliant” (Radio Times).

Glenda Jackson in 2019, when the show first aired, was 83 years old.  She is remembered for her role as Alex Greville in  Sunday Bloody Sunday which was made in 1971 when she was a mere 35 years of age.

Watching   her as Maud Horsham struggle against the onset of Alzheimer’s can be profoundly upsetting.  Some of our friends could not sleep after watching the drama.  “Will this happen to me?”  is a scary question.  Just as real as her studied and accurate performance are the reactions of those who care for her:  her daughter and her grand-daughter.

If you want to see superb acting, DO NOT MISS!

 

2017, Alcoholism, British, Dark, Depression, Disturbing Image, Drama, Explicit sex, Farm Life, Father-son relations, Gay theme, Grim, Grungy, Mother-son relations, Netflix Streaming, Nudity, Personal Betrayal, Possibly depressing, Romance, Sex Scenes, Small British village, Yorkshire setting

God’s Own Country (2017)

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From IMDB:

Spring. Yorkshire. Young farmer Johnny Saxby numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker for lambing season ignites an intense relationship that sets Johnny on a new path.

From Netflix you can stream this one hour 44 minute complete film.

Francis Lee won a Directing Award (World Cinema — Dramatic) at the Sundance Film Festival for this BAFTA-nominated film.

Yorkshire farming as vividly and unsparingly portrayed in this film shows what a grubby occupation such work really is.  No one it would seem gets to remain free of mucky mud for very long.

Meet the Saxby farming family: Johnny is the gay, lonely, desperate, dutiful son. Martin is the father now crippled by a stroke. Deirdre (played by the famous British actress Gemma Jones, who was 75 years old during the filming) is the mother.  What a cold, barely speaking trio they make! All the father does is bark out orders, despite his stroke impaired speech.  Affection does not fit into this unrelentingly grim world.

Lambing season arrives and so does the temporary Rumanian farm worker Gheorghe.  Watching Gheorghe do farm work is a pleasure. He seems to care about the “beasts” (as the family calls the animals). In one scene a lamb is born dead, which happens a lot. At the same time another newborn lamb needs a mother. So we watch (in unsparing detail) Gheorghe skin the dead lamb and wrap that skin around the orphan lamb so that the mother of the dead lamb will accept the orphan and allow it to feed.

As far as the gay theme goes,  the growing love between the two men is developed in remarkable subtlety.  Never in the film is it easy (or initially even possible) for Johnny to express himself openly. Johnny is probably one of the most repressed and inarticulate men you may ever encounter. Be prepared for full nudity and their initial somewhat violent sexual encounter.

To encourage you to enjoy this remarkable film I will reveal that the story, for all the intermittent setbacks, has a happy ending. So sue me for the mild spoiler!

 

2016, Acceptable for teenagers, Basically Sad, Boating, Brother-Brother relations, Child custody, Depression, Drama, Explicit sexual discussion, Failing Marriage, Family Conflict, Fishing, Netflix DVD, Possibly depressing, Sex Scenes, Teenagers, Uncle-Nephew relations, Violent

Manchester by the Sea (2016)

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From IMDB:

A depressed uncle is asked to take care of his teenage nephew after the boy’s father dies.

Such a sad film from beginning to end.  Just be prepared to get involved in a story that almost certainly cannot have a happy ending. For two hours you will see an emotionally numb Lee Chandler (played well enough by Casey Affleck) trying as best he can to find a solution for his nephew whose father (Lee’s brother) has just died. That problem is made more difficult by the all-around family dysfunction in which marriages have failed such that wives and mothers have moved away from their families.  Patrick, the nephew, is a normal adolescent seemingly more interested in getting laid by his multiple girl friends than in the death of his father. In this regard Lee is very permissive.  In general the relation between Lee and Patrick are begrudgingly positive.

Only when Lee gets drunk and boils over in a bar is there any violence in the film.

See also the Wikipedia article.

For some reason, it was not until the very end of the film that I realized that Lee is clinically depressed (for very legitimate reasons). Forgive my point of view, but couldn’t anyone have stepped in and suggested that Lee get professional help in this regard? But then that would spoil the story.

 

 

2012, 2014, Abduction, Acorn TV, Adultery, Bloody scenes, British, Clever Plot, Corruption, Detective, Drug Dealers, Extramarital Affair, Police Politics, Police Story, Possibly depressing, Prison, Sadism, Sex With Minors, Suspense, Torture, Violent

Line of Duty (2012)

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From Acorn TV:

Like other police units, AC-12 investigates criminals–but the lawbreakers it catches are police officers working in the line of duty. Martin Compston (Monarch of the Glen), Lennie James (The Walking Dead), and Keeley Hawes (The Casual Vacancy) star in this critically adored series called unmissible by The Times (UK).

Another lucky find!  This really taut British TV series economically keeps the tension mounting from the first police screw-up, through the ever deepening web of corruption and the corresponding undercover investigations. “Cat and Mouse” would be another good title for the series.

Series One from 2012 has 5 episodes. Series Two from 2014 has 6 episodes. There is a 6 episode Series Three from 2016 that Acorn does not yet offer.

For three episodes of Series One I was pleased to recognize Gina McKee in the role of Jackie Laverty.  Long ago in 2002 she played Irene Forsyte in “The Forsyte Saga” which was presented on public television.

NOT QUITE A SPOILER: Just remember that sometimes criminals escape justice.  And just because you watch two seasons, that does not mean that the bad guys are caught.

Today police misbehavior in the USA is a current hot topic. Hopefully this portrait of British police will not make us more cynical.

WARNING: Despite being on the edge of my seat for 11 episodes of a  DO NOT MISS series, I was not happy afterwards.

 

2015, Ambitious Dirty Tricks, Based on true facts, Bolivia, Political Campaigning, Possibly depressing, Thought provoking, Violent

Our Brand Is Crisis (2015)

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From IMDB:

A battle-hardened American political consultant is sent to help re-elect a controversial president in Bolivia, where she must compete with a long-term rival working for another candidate.

Oddly enough there is a 2005 documentary with the exact same title that discusses American political campaign marketing tactics and their consequences.

Up to now I always thought of Sandra Bullock as a comedian. In this film, however, there is nothing funny about her role as Jane who is a take-no-prisoners stop-at-nothing campaign consultant.

Jane is additionally motivated to win because her opposing campaign consultant is her arch enemy from earlier campaigns, Pat Candy played by Billy Bob Thorton. Just the fact that Thorton is in this film makes it very likely that this film is worth seeing.

Joaquim de Almeida plays the Bolivian candiate that Jane is promoting. You have seen this Portuguese actor in many presentations but I suspect you do not know his name. In fact, I found him in an IMDB list of “Most underrated European actors in hollywood”.

However, the film is rightfully depressing because it rings so true. It is almost as if the film was motivated by our current presidential campaign with its almost entirely negative atmosphere.

As a drama the film could easily have more of an effect than a documentary. At the very least, it will reach a larger audience.

Expect no happy ending.

2013, Italian, Italian culture, Not Recommended, Nudity, Possible a put-on, Possibly artsy fartsy, Possibly depressing, Unusual

The Great Beauty (2013)

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From Netflix:

As charming 65-year-old journalist Jep Gambardella writes about Rome’s culture and social life, he reflects with bitterness on the passions of his lost youth, even as he paints a complex portrait of the lovely and ancient city.

IS THIS FILM A TOTAL PUT-ON ?

If you can believe Wikipedia, this film is much acclaimed and has made a profit from worldwide screening. But then critics a paid to say something.

Supposedly this film is a metaphor about the current decline of Italian civilization, especially in the sad era of Berlusconi.

Kathy and I went expecting to see beautiful Rome and follow the life of an aging Italian journalist. We kept waiting for the good part to start, and waiting and waiting … Instead as far as we can tell we got the following:

  • Conversations that were superficial at best.
  • Social gatherings of strange, ugly, oddly dressed people dancing in circular conga lines that went nowhere.
  • Rather a lot of female strippers.
  • Overly long shots of the aging actor’s face (Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella).
  • Mother Teresa’s 105 year old twin crawling up a long set of stairs on her hands and knees.
  • Customers of all ages lined up to pay large sums for a BOTOX shot.
  • Impoverished nobles charging money to attend dinners while pretending to be someone important or royal.
  • Some aged cardinal that talked of nothing but cooking recipes.
  • And the list goes on.

Someone should tell the writer and directory Paolo Sorrentino that it is nearly impossible to out-Fellini Fellini.

If anyone out there sees and enjoys this film, please tell me why you enjoyed the film.

At least you have been warned.

Alzheimer's disease, Comedy, Could Be Sad, Crude Talk, DO NOT MISS, Dysfunctional Lives, Father-son relations, Greed, Human spirit, Possibly depressing, Quiet, Sad small town, Senior citizens, Sensitive treatement of emotions, Wonderful acting

Nebraska (2013)

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From Netflix:

When a cantankerous old boozer thinks he’s won a magazine sweepstakes prize, his son reluctantly takes a road trip with him to claim the fortune. As they drive from Montana to Nebraska, they visit friends and relatives to whom the dad owes money.

Ignore the misleading Netflix blurb. In summary, this is a wonderful film – HOWEVER …

When the movie began I did a lot of squirming, as in:

  • Who wants to watch a concentration of losers all in one desolate spot?
  • In fact who wants to visit such desolation? (Somehow the towns reminded us of Herkimer in upper state New York where Kathy grew up.)
  • Why would the sons of such a hateful father turn out to be such kind men?
  • How could that old boozer have lived with such a bitch all those years?
  • Who wants to watch incipient Alzheimer’s disease?
  • Who wants to watch greedy cretins?

Even if your initial response is a complete turn-off, please stick with the film. For one thing, the acting is so superb that it can be depressing. Will that be us in a few years? If so, let me off the planet right now!

Eventually I was cheering for “the bitch” of a mother. Dave (played to affectionate perfection by 44 year old Will Forte) was almost too good to be true. His final gestures toward his failing father are almost tear-jerkers. Bruce Dern turns in a solid performance at the tender age of 78.

Sometimes you have to get past momentary discomfort to earn a really good watching experience. DO NOT MISS!