Wild Abandon (2022)
6/10
The double life of an architect and a punk...
10 April 2022
Uysallar is the story of a successful architect in a midlife and identity crisis who (barely) tries to keep his dysfunctional family together while looking to find closure from his past (traumatized by his emotionally distant, egoistic and stern father) in the times of the dog eat dog, fast-living, consumeristic, and "you don't know your neighbors anymore" type of world.

A promising package overall...interesting set up of a plot and characters, good camera work, for the most part good acting, great soundtrack(even though barely any punk rock), top locations, lovely production design, funky graphics. Especially when you consider that the vast landscape of turkish tv show industry (which is the world's fastest growing and Second highest television series exporter after the US) has been and is still delivering for the most part mainstream and mediocre productions full of outdated images of society(gender clichés, nationalism and overblown drama).

And here comes the BUT: The series felt like a bag of many good ideas that are thrown together like puzzle pieces with the hope they will come out as a perfect whole somehow. The main flaw is that there was no thorough commitment to explore the choices, motives, sub-stories of many important characters(especially Nil, Ege, Mert, Moloz and Fevzi). This affected their relatability on the one hand, and mattered a big deal to the choices of the main protagonist and the dynamics of the story on the other. They simply needed more depth and hence more time for exposure. Maybe it was not a creative decision but budgetary, maybe there will be a second season, which I doubt, but who knows.

In the end, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. But also, I still think the glass is half full.
4 out of 5 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed