A Passionate Woman (2010) User Reviews

Sympathy for the old codger...

[Kathryne_1993 · 7/10 · 29 June 2011]

Set in both the 1950's and the 1980's, A Passionate Woman follows the story of Betty as she recalls her love affair with Craze. The setting is Leeds in the 80's, where Betty tells her son, Mark, about her affair with Polish neighbour, Craze, in the 50's. We then flashback to her dull housewife-life in the 50's, where her days revolve around looking after baby Mark, and cooking for her husband, Donald. All this changes, when she meets Craze at the local dance club, and later finds out he lives downstairs. After what seems like 5 minutes of resistance, Betty gives in to his charm, and the affair begins. That is until his wife, Moira finds out, and shoots him at the fairground. All this while she's pregnant with his child!

As we feel sorry for Betty, keeping it in all these years, we forget that she was, of course, committing adultery, and instead of siding with Donald, we blame him for the affair. It's only at the end, when it comes out that he knew about the affair all along, and nevertheless stuck by her side, we finally sympathise with him. As does Betty. So la-di-da, son gets married, Betty and Donald are back together, happy ending for all, hurrah!

I thought A Passionate Woman was thoroughly enjoyable, ignoring the fact that Billie Piper's Yorkshire accent was slipping throughout. Her chemistry with Theo James, (Craze) however, was very believable. Definitely recommend it!

a thought provoking- intriguing insight into the life of an ordinary woman

[nicole-harris7 · 6/10 · 13 April 2010]

I thought this piece of drama was very well played out by Billie if not a little shallow and quite a rushed performance, almost as if there was not quite enough time to enthral us into the passions of this 'chance affair', the blame for this would predominately lie with the director than Billie herself but then again, how deep can you get in 90mins? and would you want to? When all is said and done all the actors and actresses played their parts with minimal effort in my account as if it was almost too easier part to play - could this be in part owed to the story itself being a vague account of a romanticised memory open to suggestion - without enough knowledge into to the feelings of the individuals whose story she told. For example Craze's wife, (whose name escapes me) demonstrated perfectly the obliviousness to the situation and then from the and sudden discourse and disbelief of what she had discovered portrayed by her actions it was clear Craze could invoke deep passions in both of these women however for Betty the transition from timid housewife to passion filled obsession did not bode well for me as at first it was Craze with all the passion and energy and within 2 or 3 more encounters this turned 360 degrees to Betty behaving completely out of character! I just don't think there was enough alone time with the two main characters for Betty to have become so engrossed! Thought provoking though because why did a man who went out of his way to see her in the interim suddenly separate himself from the situation without any explanation not even a lie? was he really just out for sex? I hope part two is a little more in-depth!

What a debut from Theo James!

[Britsahil123 · 10/10 · 2 January 2021]

I looked it up to see the earlier works of Theo James and didn't realise it was his debut. Perfect Sunday night drama from BBC based on a true story. I loved both parts, great story brought to life by the great cast. Theo James had great screen presence right from the start of his career!